Why singing is golden: Linking singing exercise and vocal performance in songbirds

Vocal communication is decisive for animal fitness and a crucial component of human society. I recently uncovered an unexpected link between vocal exercise and vocal communication: Male songbirds need to exercise their vocal muscles daily to produce songs that are attractive to their partners. The link between training and performance is well established in sports but completely overseen and unknown in vocal communication. It provides a compelling mechanism for how health and fitness status of an animal is advertised in its voice. Capitalizing on this breakthrough, I propose a multidisciplinary approach to mechanistically investigate how vocal exercise affects vocal performance. I will combine singing training with novel in vitro muscle training and gene expression analysis in songbirds to identify the drivers of vocal muscle plasticity. Due to the shared evolutionary origin of vocal muscles, the results promise to transform our understanding of vocal communication in all vertebrates. The grant will allow the recruitment of a PhD student and a postdoc.