Soundspace partitioning to increase communication efficiency in bird communities

Abstract

Birds do not always vocalize at random, but may rather divide up soundspace in such a manner that they avoid overlap with the songs of other bird species. In effect, a high degree of communication efficiency can be achieved by many simultaneously active vocalists that finely integrate songs with minimal overlap. We describe this phenomenon from several recordings at our principal study location, near Volcano, California. The most-studied models for conceptualizing and studying such de-synchronized systems come from scheduling algorithms in computer science, where internet protocols involve packets of information that are broadcast widely; any collisions between them will corrupt the colliding packets so that they need to be resent. We have simulated some of these methods that might be appropriate for the soundspace of bird communities. Some features of these de-synchronized depend on specifics of the algorithms used.