Chirping across continents: variation in urban house sparrow (Passer domesticus) vocalizations across North America and Europe

Abstract

The house sparrow ( Passer domesticus ) is one of the most widespread invasive bird species, with numerous and dense populations established across urban-agricultural landscapes of North America. Although this species has been widely studied to identify the traits that explain its global ubiquity, descriptions of house sparrow acoustic features across its native and introduced range are limited in the literature. We recorded male house sparrow vocalizations from 13 cities across Europe and North America to quantify the structural features of its common “chirrup” vocalization. Although the basic structure and duration were consistent across the two geographic regions, the vocalizations differed in their minimum frequencies and bandwidth. In a post hoc analysis of 140 museum specimens, we found that European house sparrows had larger bills and bodies than those in North America. Thus, we propose that these frequency shifts could be a result of synergistic interactions between morphological differences, potential differences in ambient noise, acoustic overlap with other species within the soundscape, or other acoustic features of European and North American cities. House sparrows seem to be a good model for future bioacoustics studies, given their worldwide distribution and acoustic plasticity, to test hypotheses related to urbanization traits and invasion potential.

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