Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Children are not better learners of Languages compared to Adults
Everybody’s favorite stereotypical excuse to not learning a foreign language is that adults can’t learn languages as well as children. The common misconception is that children’s brains are more elastic and more capable of remembering new languages and that our adult brains are rigid and incapable of adapting to the newlanguage’s structure and remembering vocabulary. However, in the last few years, many researchers have found this statement to be false. So while there may be some truth to that statement, it´s not completely accurate. So let’s take a look at why adults may actually be betterlanguage learners than children.
Adults already understand how language works
Adults have the ability to effectively analyze foreign language grammar structures and compare them to their own language. For example, an adult already knows how to properly form sentences and the difference between the functions of the different parts of speech. Adults also have the ability to recognize common structures and patterns and apply them to similar situations. Children, while they can remember vocabulary, are unable to do this. This gives adults a huge advantage over them.
Adults and children use language differently
The communication expectations for children are very different from those of adults. Children are only expected to communicate basic ideas, using simple vocabulary and in uncomplicated situations. Adults, on the other hand, are expected to use language in much more complex situations at work or among peers that reflects adult-level thought and critical thinking. Therefore, the amount and complexity of the language that a child must know in order to reach a fluent level for their age is much lower. Therefore, fluency cannot be compared so easily between adults and children, as the expectations of each are quite distinct.
Adults have access to more resources
Adults possess determination, self-discipline and access to resources, all which are things that children do not have. An adult, if he or she so wishes, can actively enroll in classes, seek out other language learners and native speakers to practice with and force themselves to study and improve. Children haven’t developed these resources yet and rather rely on exposure to foreign languages through family.
Children do however have one main advantage over adults; they generally lack the inhibitions of adults. Adults are used to being able to communicate perfectly without having to try too hard or think about what they are trying to communicate. For most adults, it can be quite embarrassing to speak using improper grammar or simple vocabulary, or to sound silly (all which are normal when learning a language). Children are much less self-conscious than adults in this regard. This fear of embarrassing one’s self is what often holds many adults back from studying a foreign language. Once it is overcome however, there are no limits to your language-learning potential!
Children are not better learners of Languages compared to Adults
Everybody’s favorite stereotypical excuse to not learning a foreign language is that adults can’t learn languages as well as children. The common misconception is that children’s brains are more elastic and more capable of remembering new languages and that our adult brains are rigid and incapable of adapting to the newlanguage’s structure and remembering vocabulary. However, in the last few years, many researchers have found this statement to be false. So while there may be some truth to that statement, it´s not completely accurate. So let’s take a look at why adults may actually be betterlanguage learners than children.
Adults already understand how language works
Adults have the ability to effectively analyze foreign language grammar structures and compare them to their own language. For example, an adult already knows how to properly form sentences and the difference between the functions of the different parts of speech. Adults also have the ability to recognize common structures and patterns and apply them to similar situations. Children, while they can remember vocabulary, are unable to do this. This gives adults a huge advantage over them.
Adults and children use language differently
The communication expectations for children are very different from those of adults. Children are only expected to communicate basic ideas, using simple vocabulary and in uncomplicated situations. Adults, on the other hand, are expected to use language in much more complex situations at work or among peers that reflects adult-level thought and critical thinking. Therefore, the amount and complexity of the language that a child must know in order to reach a fluent level for their age is much lower. Therefore, fluency cannot be compared so easily between adults and children, as the expectations of each are quite distinct.
Adults have access to more resources
Adults possess determination, self-discipline and access to resources, all which are things that children do not have. An adult, if he or she so wishes, can actively enroll in classes, seek out other language learners and native speakers to practice with and force themselves to study and improve. Children haven’t developed these resources yet and rather rely on exposure to foreign languages through family.
Children do however have one main advantage over adults; they generally lack the inhibitions of adults. Adults are used to being able to communicate perfectly without having to try too hard or think about what they are trying to communicate. For most adults, it can be quite embarrassing to speak using improper grammar or simple vocabulary, or to sound silly (all which are normal when learning a language). Children are much less self-conscious than adults in this regard. This fear of embarrassing one’s self is what often holds many adults back from studying a foreign language. Once it is overcome however, there are no limits to your language-learning potential!
Translation + Interpretation
How Do Translation and Interpretation Differ?
There is a common misunderstanding about those who work in the field of translation andinterpretation. Sometimes these professionals are referred to using the umbrella term ‘translators’, and are believed to be linguists capable of providing all kinds of linguistic services simply because they possess a very advanced knowledge of a foreign language. This assumption is not only incorrect, but furthermore plays down the level of training and skill required to work effectively intranslation and interpretation respectively.
Translators and interpreters have much in common. They both start life as linguists, when they acquire competency in foreign language(s) either through formal education, as a result of a bi- or sometimes even trilingual upbringing, or from having grown up in various countries where different languages are spoken. Many of those who choose to embark on careers as professional linguists gain a professional qualification in translation, interpretation, or both – the mere ability to speak a foreign language very well usually isn’t enough to work in the field, and neither can a qualified translator automatically do an interpreter’s job, or vice versa. While it is possible to work in translation and interpretation without a formal qualification in the field, it is less common and more difficult to do so.
Despite their having many similarities, there is one fundamental difference between these two forms of cross-cultural communication. Translation deals with the written word, while interpretation the spoken one.
So, how does the work of translators and interpreters differ?
Translators work with written texts and have (a relative amount of) time to think their work through, edit it and revise it before deciding it is complete and delivering it before an agreed deadline. Their work is largely done on a computer, and so they can work from almost anywhere – but normally from home (in the case of freelance translators), or in an office (in the case of in-house translators), and are able to consult any reference texts, if need be. Since translators often work alone as many are self-employed individuals, it can be quite a solitary job.
Interpreters deal with oral communication, often working in conferences or the public sector (for example in courts, for police forces, and more), but also for private clients who are frequently individuals requiring interpretation services. They work under significant amounts of pressure, and, unlike translators, once they have rendered their message in the target language, they can’t return to their work and change it. There is therefore a pressing need for them to get things right the first time round. Interpreters, especially conference interpreters, tend to prepare for their interpreting sessions beforehand to make sure they understand the context of what it is they are interpreting. It is a somewhat more social job than translating, since interpreters always work alongside other people.
If you are seeking interpretation services, please click here to find out about what Trusted Translations has to offer.
Translation + Interpretation
How Do Translation and Interpretation Differ?
There is a common misunderstanding about those who work in the field of translation andinterpretation. Sometimes these professionals are referred to using the umbrella term ‘translators’, and are believed to be linguists capable of providing all kinds of linguistic services simply because they possess a very advanced knowledge of a foreign language. This assumption is not only incorrect, but furthermore plays down the level of training and skill required to work effectively intranslation and interpretation respectively.
Translators and interpreters have much in common. They both start life as linguists, when they acquire competency in foreign language(s) either through formal education, as a result of a bi- or sometimes even trilingual upbringing, or from having grown up in various countries where different languages are spoken. Many of those who choose to embark on careers as professional linguists gain a professional qualification in translation, interpretation, or both – the mere ability to speak a foreign language very well usually isn’t enough to work in the field, and neither can a qualified translator automatically do an interpreter’s job, or vice versa. While it is possible to work in translation and interpretation without a formal qualification in the field, it is less common and more difficult to do so.
Despite their having many similarities, there is one fundamental difference between these two forms of cross-cultural communication. Translation deals with the written word, while interpretation the spoken one.
So, how does the work of translators and interpreters differ?
Translators work with written texts and have (a relative amount of) time to think their work through, edit it and revise it before deciding it is complete and delivering it before an agreed deadline. Their work is largely done on a computer, and so they can work from almost anywhere – but normally from home (in the case of freelance translators), or in an office (in the case of in-house translators), and are able to consult any reference texts, if need be. Since translators often work alone as many are self-employed individuals, it can be quite a solitary job.
Interpreters deal with oral communication, often working in conferences or the public sector (for example in courts, for police forces, and more), but also for private clients who are frequently individuals requiring interpretation services. They work under significant amounts of pressure, and, unlike translators, once they have rendered their message in the target language, they can’t return to their work and change it. There is therefore a pressing need for them to get things right the first time round. Interpreters, especially conference interpreters, tend to prepare for their interpreting sessions beforehand to make sure they understand the context of what it is they are interpreting. It is a somewhat more social job than translating, since interpreters always work alongside other people.
If you are seeking interpretation services, please click here to find out about what Trusted Translations has to offer.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Wisdom: A Return To Discovery
Wisdom: A Return To Discovery: The river of discovery beckons... Though my hiatuses (hiati?) from blogging are never deliberate, they happen sometimes. Since you las...
Wisdom: A Return To Discovery
Wisdom: A Return To Discovery: The river of discovery beckons... Though my hiatuses (hiati?) from blogging are never deliberate, they happen sometimes. Since you las...
Wisdom: Skip Breakfast
Wisdom: Skip Breakfast: Skip Breakfast? Once considered the foundation of any healthy diet, the morning meal may now be negotiable. The belief that we...
Wisdom: Skip Breakfast
Wisdom: Skip Breakfast: Skip Breakfast? Once considered the foundation of any healthy diet, the morning meal may now be negotiable. The belief that we...
PRISONERS OF THE MIND - Filming
PRISONERS OF THE MIND
By Trisha Gupta
Credit: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/columns/columnists/trisha-gupta/Prisoners-of-the-mind/articleshow/46415385.cms
The jail as a space holds an abiding interest for Badlapur's director Sriram Raghavan, serving as an instrument to analyse power relationships between the characters in his films.
Sriram Raghavan was a movie buff much before he became a director, and it's something he's always worn on his sleeve. In 2007's Johnny Gaddaar, his best-received film till date, Raghavan paid cinematic tribute to Vijay Anand's thriller Johnny Mera Naam, Stanley Kubrick's noir The Killing, and the celebrated murder sequence from the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Parwana - among many classics. His last outing, the rollicking (and unfairly panned) Agent Vinod, was a spy thriller: A James Bond homage served with an Indian flavour and a twinkle in the eye. In his latest, Badlapur, when the heist-andmurder-accused Laik arrives in jail for what is going to be a long stretch in captivity, the prisoners gather round a television on which Sholay is playing. "Bees baras jail mein rehne ke baad sab kucch bhool jaoge, Gabbar," announces Sanjeev's Kumar's Thakur to Amjad Khan's iconic dacoit.
Unlike Gabbar, Nawazuddin Siddiqui's Laik completes most of his 15-year jail sentence. But as Raghavan makes clear, in Badlapurand in his gripping first feature, Ek Hasina Thi (2004), time in jail needn't wipe out memories of one's past.
Badlapur comes a decade after Ek Hasina Thi, but the two films have much in common: The hardening of innocents, and the passage of time in expectation of revenge. In EHT, it was the trusting Sarika (Urmila Matondkar), jailed on a trumpedup charge of being the mistress of an underworld don, who went from wide-eyed child-woman to steely avenger. In Badlapur, it is Varun Dhawan's youthful family man Raghu who makes the transition to a man solely possessed by the idea of vengeance. Female revenge sagas seem to necessarily involve a physical transformation - think Khoon Bhari Maang for a classic Hindi movie example - and EHT was no exception. Matondkar's Sarika went from long crinkly locks, bell sleeves and ultra-feminine gathered skirts to a more practical crop and fitted trousers. Raghu, too, goes from wholesome and clean-shaven to stubbly and then bearded in his grief-stricken avatar.
But Raghavan's journey from EHTto Badlapur involves much more than a simple change in the gender of his protagonist. He's playing with the same concerns - tragedy, revenge, innocence, evil - but the game feels quite different. For one, unlike in EHT, it isn't the clean-cut middle class young person (Dhawan) who is thrown into prison. It is the bad apple, the petty thief who's never done anything right, the guy who we've just seen shooting two innocents for no fault of their own.
So, logically we ought to spend the film feeling glad: The bad guy's in prison, isn't he? But Raghavan pushes the knife in, and then turns it slowly - Siddiqui's unforgettable portrayal of Laik makes him powerfully, unmistakeably human. He may lie in court and ogle girls on the street, but he is also a man who truly loves - and is loved back by - at least one woman. What is truly appealing is his zest for life. His longing for chicken korma and Thai massage remains undimmed by years in the wilderness of jail.
Jail itself is clearly of interest to Raghavan. In EHT, it was a women's prison, a place of madness and misery, as places of female incarceration have been in films from Bimal Roy's Bandini to Bruno Dumont's affecting Camille(2013), about the reallife sculptress Camille Claudel. For the gentle Sarika, the cruel truth of her lover's betrayal only sinks in alongside the horror of what she must endure because of it. The rats in her prison cell and the terrible food are not the worst of it. It is the casual humiliations, the mindless fights, the power games and the bullying that come to make jail seem, in her mind and ours, a microcosm of the world outside. If you learn to survive this, Raghavan seems to suggest, you're equipped for anything the outside world can throw at you.
And yet there are also those for whom jail is a refuge of sorts: The half-crazed Dolly, with whom Sarika shares her cell, declares quite seriously that prison food is delicious, while Pratima Kazmi's impressive Pramila, playing the widow of a mafia don, stays in prison voluntarily because it is a safe haven, away from both the police and gangs.
The depiction of jail in Badlapur is quite different from that in EHT. There is the occasional bout of violence here, too. But unlike the wild, unsupervised catfights and free-for-all sense of the women's prison he created in 2007, Raghavan paints Badlapur's jail as a Foucauldian space: Beds in straight lines, a place of discipline and punishment. Laiq even inhabits it as a space of labour: He learns to make chairs, which will earn him money. And eventually it is the medicalisation of jail as a space, its recognition of his diseased body, which allows him to gain a few months of physical freedom.
Meanwhile we have Raghu, who immerses himself in his grief, churning it deeper and deeper until it curdles into violence. He is physically free, but mentally incarcerated. If the relentless passage of the years, without being able to move on with one's life, is prison's real punishment, then Raghu has done as the film says: Imprisoned himself in his own jail. He has made time stand still.
Badlapur's eventual take on revenge seems to me more ambitious than film noir in the traditional sense. It reverses our ideas about what justice might mean, but also our idea of who is deserving of it.
PRISONERS OF THE MIND - Filming
PRISONERS OF THE MIND
By Trisha Gupta
Credit: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/columns/columnists/trisha-gupta/Prisoners-of-the-mind/articleshow/46415385.cms
The jail as a space holds an abiding interest for Badlapur's director Sriram Raghavan, serving as an instrument to analyse power relationships between the characters in his films.
Sriram Raghavan was a movie buff much before he became a director, and it's something he's always worn on his sleeve. In 2007's Johnny Gaddaar, his best-received film till date, Raghavan paid cinematic tribute to Vijay Anand's thriller Johnny Mera Naam, Stanley Kubrick's noir The Killing, and the celebrated murder sequence from the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Parwana - among many classics. His last outing, the rollicking (and unfairly panned) Agent Vinod, was a spy thriller: A James Bond homage served with an Indian flavour and a twinkle in the eye. In his latest, Badlapur, when the heist-andmurder-accused Laik arrives in jail for what is going to be a long stretch in captivity, the prisoners gather round a television on which Sholay is playing. "Bees baras jail mein rehne ke baad sab kucch bhool jaoge, Gabbar," announces Sanjeev's Kumar's Thakur to Amjad Khan's iconic dacoit.
Unlike Gabbar, Nawazuddin Siddiqui's Laik completes most of his 15-year jail sentence. But as Raghavan makes clear, in Badlapurand in his gripping first feature, Ek Hasina Thi (2004), time in jail needn't wipe out memories of one's past.
Badlapur comes a decade after Ek Hasina Thi, but the two films have much in common: The hardening of innocents, and the passage of time in expectation of revenge. In EHT, it was the trusting Sarika (Urmila Matondkar), jailed on a trumpedup charge of being the mistress of an underworld don, who went from wide-eyed child-woman to steely avenger. In Badlapur, it is Varun Dhawan's youthful family man Raghu who makes the transition to a man solely possessed by the idea of vengeance. Female revenge sagas seem to necessarily involve a physical transformation - think Khoon Bhari Maang for a classic Hindi movie example - and EHT was no exception. Matondkar's Sarika went from long crinkly locks, bell sleeves and ultra-feminine gathered skirts to a more practical crop and fitted trousers. Raghu, too, goes from wholesome and clean-shaven to stubbly and then bearded in his grief-stricken avatar.
But Raghavan's journey from EHTto Badlapur involves much more than a simple change in the gender of his protagonist. He's playing with the same concerns - tragedy, revenge, innocence, evil - but the game feels quite different. For one, unlike in EHT, it isn't the clean-cut middle class young person (Dhawan) who is thrown into prison. It is the bad apple, the petty thief who's never done anything right, the guy who we've just seen shooting two innocents for no fault of their own.
So, logically we ought to spend the film feeling glad: The bad guy's in prison, isn't he? But Raghavan pushes the knife in, and then turns it slowly - Siddiqui's unforgettable portrayal of Laik makes him powerfully, unmistakeably human. He may lie in court and ogle girls on the street, but he is also a man who truly loves - and is loved back by - at least one woman. What is truly appealing is his zest for life. His longing for chicken korma and Thai massage remains undimmed by years in the wilderness of jail.
Jail itself is clearly of interest to Raghavan. In EHT, it was a women's prison, a place of madness and misery, as places of female incarceration have been in films from Bimal Roy's Bandini to Bruno Dumont's affecting Camille(2013), about the reallife sculptress Camille Claudel. For the gentle Sarika, the cruel truth of her lover's betrayal only sinks in alongside the horror of what she must endure because of it. The rats in her prison cell and the terrible food are not the worst of it. It is the casual humiliations, the mindless fights, the power games and the bullying that come to make jail seem, in her mind and ours, a microcosm of the world outside. If you learn to survive this, Raghavan seems to suggest, you're equipped for anything the outside world can throw at you.
And yet there are also those for whom jail is a refuge of sorts: The half-crazed Dolly, with whom Sarika shares her cell, declares quite seriously that prison food is delicious, while Pratima Kazmi's impressive Pramila, playing the widow of a mafia don, stays in prison voluntarily because it is a safe haven, away from both the police and gangs.
The depiction of jail in Badlapur is quite different from that in EHT. There is the occasional bout of violence here, too. But unlike the wild, unsupervised catfights and free-for-all sense of the women's prison he created in 2007, Raghavan paints Badlapur's jail as a Foucauldian space: Beds in straight lines, a place of discipline and punishment. Laiq even inhabits it as a space of labour: He learns to make chairs, which will earn him money. And eventually it is the medicalisation of jail as a space, its recognition of his diseased body, which allows him to gain a few months of physical freedom.
Meanwhile we have Raghu, who immerses himself in his grief, churning it deeper and deeper until it curdles into violence. He is physically free, but mentally incarcerated. If the relentless passage of the years, without being able to move on with one's life, is prison's real punishment, then Raghu has done as the film says: Imprisoned himself in his own jail. He has made time stand still.
Badlapur's eventual take on revenge seems to me more ambitious than film noir in the traditional sense. It reverses our ideas about what justice might mean, but also our idea of who is deserving of it.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Bird Nest Design
Bird Nest Design - More Complex and Fascinating than you Ever Would Have Suspected
Nest design in birds is fascinating, and not just because it's, well, er, fascinating, but also because studying it forces us to rethink what we've assumed to be true. Science is, in spite of what we'd like to think, rife with assumptions. Luckily, most of these assumptions are small, insignificant, and don't influence many decisions. But, alas, they are there, and they're often cryptic. Clearing out that ambiguity can be a challenge, but when done as part of the quest to find truth rather than to be proved right, the results can be breathtakingly interesting.
Such is the case in a recent "review" paper called The design and function of birds’ nests. In this paper, the authors have systematically sleuthed through their own and a great variety of other authors' research to produce a succinct, and elegant, set of overarching themes. Quick digression. Why do I love these kinds of papers so much? If one is researching a topic, typically he/she would have to hop between a great number of potentially unconnected papers, hoping to draw the right conclusions between them all. In review papers, fulltime, professional scientists have done that for you, and they've done it with access to more research, more great minds, and more cutting edge ideas. In short, they're laying out all the research--and with it the prevailing ideas--on a particular subject for your convenience. It's good stuff.
Anyway, back to the research. In birds, there's a significant behavior that we--lay people and ornithologists--take for granted all too often: the nest. In ornithology, the prevailing assumption has been that nests are purely used by birds for nesting and nothing more. More specifically, the assumption is that nest design--and time spent building--is determined purely by natural selection, with the selective pressure, of course, being predation risk.
But there are lots of strange behaviors, found both in observational and experimental studies, that challenge seemingly obvious assumption. The best part? There are a lot of questions left to be answered. Let's dive into some of the interesting bits (read as much or as little as you please):
Nest site selection is highly influenced by predation risk. Interestingly, birds who nest high in the forest strata are at greater risk of predation from avian predators, but much lower risk from mammalian predators. Conversely, birds that nest low in forest strata are at high risk from mammalian predators and low risk from avian predators. Birds nesting halfway up are at equal risk from both. So (#FieldSkills), if you're in an area where most of the bird species nest high, for example, it can be reasonably assumed that mammalian predation is more prevalent than avian predation. There are some other interesting observations from studies on nest placement in relation to predation risk:
Some birds nest near wasp nests or other aggressive species like kestrels to reduce risk of predation, even if it puts them in a certain amount of danger
Some birds will actively shift their nest site halfway through the breeding season if the previous site proved to be rather predator-laden. This is interesting because it indicates that nest site selection is not purely genetic/instinctive, but rather that it is a combination of instinct and learning.
Some birds will even track the amounts of rodents in their area and colonize more heavily in areas with heavy rodent concentrations. They do this because species that would prey on them prefer rodents, and with heavy rodent population, the predation risk is lower.
Ground nesting birds instinctively "know" the color of their eggs and actively seek potential laying areas where their eggs will blend in
Nests can be used to express the fitness of a potential mate...in other words, nest design is also subject to sexual selection (BIG IDEA)
Sexual selection favors larger nests, able to house more eggs. This is in direct contrast to natural selection for small nests.
Birds with high body condition invest more in nest building, indicating that the quality of a male's nest can be used by the female to gauge the quality of the male as a mate.
Male starlings integrate green plant material into their nests, and females respond by integrating feathers into the same nest. This is fascinating because it indicates that females are "impressed" by male presentation of green plant material, and are actively responding by investing more in the nest.
Birds change their nesting habits with altitude as well. Nesting high in trees, and thus closer to the sun and its head, is common in high-altitude species. These nests average more insulated as well to account for more radical changes in temperature.
A quick look at the paper.
These points are only the tip of an iceberg of interesting information in this paper (which, by the way, is open access...click the image to the right!). The most important overarching theme is this: nest design is subject to natural selection AND sexual selection. An inconspicuous nest can hide chicks from predators, but it may also leave females unimpressed. Birds designing nests have a lot to take into account to protect offspring: microclimate, color of the environment, parasites, what nest insulation is necessary, how impressive a nest may be to the opposite sex, etc. And all this is reflective of the health (quality) of the nest site selector and builder.
I don't know about you, but this stuff gets me excited. There are so many little details, so much nuance, that remind us of the staggering complexity of the world around us. What a privilege it is that we can even begin to figure it out.
I encourage you all to read the paper yourselves, and, as with any perpetual learner, to ask as many questions as possible. This paper does a good job of highlighting what's yet to be learned; seize that opportunity!
Bird Nest Design
Bird Nest Design - More Complex and Fascinating than you Ever Would Have Suspected
Nest design in birds is fascinating, and not just because it's, well, er, fascinating, but also because studying it forces us to rethink what we've assumed to be true. Science is, in spite of what we'd like to think, rife with assumptions. Luckily, most of these assumptions are small, insignificant, and don't influence many decisions. But, alas, they are there, and they're often cryptic. Clearing out that ambiguity can be a challenge, but when done as part of the quest to find truth rather than to be proved right, the results can be breathtakingly interesting.
Such is the case in a recent "review" paper called The design and function of birds’ nests. In this paper, the authors have systematically sleuthed through their own and a great variety of other authors' research to produce a succinct, and elegant, set of overarching themes. Quick digression. Why do I love these kinds of papers so much? If one is researching a topic, typically he/she would have to hop between a great number of potentially unconnected papers, hoping to draw the right conclusions between them all. In review papers, fulltime, professional scientists have done that for you, and they've done it with access to more research, more great minds, and more cutting edge ideas. In short, they're laying out all the research--and with it the prevailing ideas--on a particular subject for your convenience. It's good stuff.
Anyway, back to the research. In birds, there's a significant behavior that we--lay people and ornithologists--take for granted all too often: the nest. In ornithology, the prevailing assumption has been that nests are purely used by birds for nesting and nothing more. More specifically, the assumption is that nest design--and time spent building--is determined purely by natural selection, with the selective pressure, of course, being predation risk.
But there are lots of strange behaviors, found both in observational and experimental studies, that challenge seemingly obvious assumption. The best part? There are a lot of questions left to be answered. Let's dive into some of the interesting bits (read as much or as little as you please):
Nest site selection is highly influenced by predation risk. Interestingly, birds who nest high in the forest strata are at greater risk of predation from avian predators, but much lower risk from mammalian predators. Conversely, birds that nest low in forest strata are at high risk from mammalian predators and low risk from avian predators. Birds nesting halfway up are at equal risk from both. So (#FieldSkills), if you're in an area where most of the bird species nest high, for example, it can be reasonably assumed that mammalian predation is more prevalent than avian predation. There are some other interesting observations from studies on nest placement in relation to predation risk:
Some birds nest near wasp nests or other aggressive species like kestrels to reduce risk of predation, even if it puts them in a certain amount of danger
Some birds will actively shift their nest site halfway through the breeding season if the previous site proved to be rather predator-laden. This is interesting because it indicates that nest site selection is not purely genetic/instinctive, but rather that it is a combination of instinct and learning.
Some birds will even track the amounts of rodents in their area and colonize more heavily in areas with heavy rodent concentrations. They do this because species that would prey on them prefer rodents, and with heavy rodent population, the predation risk is lower.
Ground nesting birds instinctively "know" the color of their eggs and actively seek potential laying areas where their eggs will blend in
Nests can be used to express the fitness of a potential mate...in other words, nest design is also subject to sexual selection (BIG IDEA)
Sexual selection favors larger nests, able to house more eggs. This is in direct contrast to natural selection for small nests.
Birds with high body condition invest more in nest building, indicating that the quality of a male's nest can be used by the female to gauge the quality of the male as a mate.
Male starlings integrate green plant material into their nests, and females respond by integrating feathers into the same nest. This is fascinating because it indicates that females are "impressed" by male presentation of green plant material, and are actively responding by investing more in the nest.
Birds change their nesting habits with altitude as well. Nesting high in trees, and thus closer to the sun and its head, is common in high-altitude species. These nests average more insulated as well to account for more radical changes in temperature.
A quick look at the paper.
These points are only the tip of an iceberg of interesting information in this paper (which, by the way, is open access...click the image to the right!). The most important overarching theme is this: nest design is subject to natural selection AND sexual selection. An inconspicuous nest can hide chicks from predators, but it may also leave females unimpressed. Birds designing nests have a lot to take into account to protect offspring: microclimate, color of the environment, parasites, what nest insulation is necessary, how impressive a nest may be to the opposite sex, etc. And all this is reflective of the health (quality) of the nest site selector and builder.
I don't know about you, but this stuff gets me excited. There are so many little details, so much nuance, that remind us of the staggering complexity of the world around us. What a privilege it is that we can even begin to figure it out.
I encourage you all to read the paper yourselves, and, as with any perpetual learner, to ask as many questions as possible. This paper does a good job of highlighting what's yet to be learned; seize that opportunity!
The King-of-Saxony Bird-of-Paradise
Pectoral Sandpipers are among the most accomplished non-passerine songsters--researchers look into how
by Nick Minor
When one ponders why they're interested in birds, song is one of the highlights of experiencing the avian world. From familiar voices like the ethereal warbles of the Hermit Thrush, the nostalgic whistles of a White-throated Sparrow, or the bold notes of the Northern Cardinal, to exotic voices like the incomparable, sizzling gurgle of the King-of-Saxony Bird-of-Paradise, the machine-gun trill of the Brown Sicklebill, or ear-piercingly loud White Bellbird, song is one of the most distinctive facets of Aves. One little detail, however, stands out after a little extra exploration. When people talk about birdsong, most if not all of the go-to examples are songbirds (Passeriformes, or passerines for short). All the examples above, hailing from such diverse families as the Thrushes to New World Sparrows to Birds-of-Paradise to Cotingas, are passerines. Surely song can't be limited to the birds that bear its name!
As I'm sure you've guessed, it's not.
Figure 1 from the first paper cited below, highlighting the
many pieces that make a complete Pectoral Sandpiper
display. See first citation.
Song is a mate-attraction strategy. Whichever sex of a given species competes for mates of the opposite sex (most of the time it's males) is subject to sexual selection, where traits that are more attractive to potential mates are passed on, whereas less attractive traits aren't. Sexual selection is responsible for peacock tails, cardinal reds, and every complex song out there. In some species, like birds of prey, potential mates don't find self-broadcasting behaviors like song attractive. But in others--especially species that have limited time and resources to breed--self-broadcasting is an extremely useful way for the competing sex to communicate their quality and the quality of their resources through the complexity of their songs. It is, to say it with brevity, efficient. Species that require this efficiency will have sexual selection acting on behaviors like song.
Not surprisingly, then, do we find that many arctic-nesting shorebirds have elaborate songs and song displays, and one of the foremost among them is the Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos). To quote Andrew Spencer of Earbirding,
"The classic “song” of the species is unlike any other sound on the Arctic, and any other shorebird in the New World – the male bird sits on an exposed tussock, slowly inflating its pectoral pouch and ruffling its black-based breast feathers before suddenly launching itself into the air and flying low over the ground. Partway into the flight its wings slow into a more exaggerated butterfly flight and it begins emitting a low-pitched hooting series, pumping its head in time with each hoot while its expanded pectoral pouch hangs underneath like a bosom. Right after the series ends it suddenly undulates up into the air a few times before circling back around and landing again. It’s a show like no other!"
Having received more and more attention, researchers from the U.S. and Germany banded together to look into how they do it, and they found some fascinating stuff. I'll report on just a few of them here. First, "Pecs" have evolved a vocal organ (syrinx) similar in anatomy to that of songbirds, a fascinating fact given that Pecs must have evolved this vocal complexity completely on its own. In evolution, this is called convergence. Also fascinating, Pecs show an ability to expand their esophagus similar to that found in doves and pigeons. Why? Males fill their throats with around 30 mL of air in preparation for their courtship display, though their throats have a capacity of up to 50 mL. All this just to impress females. Finally, Pectoral Sandpipers' courtship displays are incredibly ritualized: their display includes three phases, each with different vocalizations and locations (ground or in flight). Different vocalizations are directed at different individuals as well, with some meant for competing males and some for females,
Needless to say, if you bird along Pecs' migratory pathways, we would hardly recognize the same bird on their breeding grounds.
Read more here, on Earbirding, and here, in The Auk,
The King-of-Saxony Bird-of-Paradise
Pectoral Sandpipers are among the most accomplished non-passerine songsters--researchers look into how
by Nick Minor
When one ponders why they're interested in birds, song is one of the highlights of experiencing the avian world. From familiar voices like the ethereal warbles of the Hermit Thrush, the nostalgic whistles of a White-throated Sparrow, or the bold notes of the Northern Cardinal, to exotic voices like the incomparable, sizzling gurgle of the King-of-Saxony Bird-of-Paradise, the machine-gun trill of the Brown Sicklebill, or ear-piercingly loud White Bellbird, song is one of the most distinctive facets of Aves. One little detail, however, stands out after a little extra exploration. When people talk about birdsong, most if not all of the go-to examples are songbirds (Passeriformes, or passerines for short). All the examples above, hailing from such diverse families as the Thrushes to New World Sparrows to Birds-of-Paradise to Cotingas, are passerines. Surely song can't be limited to the birds that bear its name!
As I'm sure you've guessed, it's not.
Figure 1 from the first paper cited below, highlighting the
many pieces that make a complete Pectoral Sandpiper
display. See first citation.
Song is a mate-attraction strategy. Whichever sex of a given species competes for mates of the opposite sex (most of the time it's males) is subject to sexual selection, where traits that are more attractive to potential mates are passed on, whereas less attractive traits aren't. Sexual selection is responsible for peacock tails, cardinal reds, and every complex song out there. In some species, like birds of prey, potential mates don't find self-broadcasting behaviors like song attractive. But in others--especially species that have limited time and resources to breed--self-broadcasting is an extremely useful way for the competing sex to communicate their quality and the quality of their resources through the complexity of their songs. It is, to say it with brevity, efficient. Species that require this efficiency will have sexual selection acting on behaviors like song.
Not surprisingly, then, do we find that many arctic-nesting shorebirds have elaborate songs and song displays, and one of the foremost among them is the Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos). To quote Andrew Spencer of Earbirding,
"The classic “song” of the species is unlike any other sound on the Arctic, and any other shorebird in the New World – the male bird sits on an exposed tussock, slowly inflating its pectoral pouch and ruffling its black-based breast feathers before suddenly launching itself into the air and flying low over the ground. Partway into the flight its wings slow into a more exaggerated butterfly flight and it begins emitting a low-pitched hooting series, pumping its head in time with each hoot while its expanded pectoral pouch hangs underneath like a bosom. Right after the series ends it suddenly undulates up into the air a few times before circling back around and landing again. It’s a show like no other!"
Having received more and more attention, researchers from the U.S. and Germany banded together to look into how they do it, and they found some fascinating stuff. I'll report on just a few of them here. First, "Pecs" have evolved a vocal organ (syrinx) similar in anatomy to that of songbirds, a fascinating fact given that Pecs must have evolved this vocal complexity completely on its own. In evolution, this is called convergence. Also fascinating, Pecs show an ability to expand their esophagus similar to that found in doves and pigeons. Why? Males fill their throats with around 30 mL of air in preparation for their courtship display, though their throats have a capacity of up to 50 mL. All this just to impress females. Finally, Pectoral Sandpipers' courtship displays are incredibly ritualized: their display includes three phases, each with different vocalizations and locations (ground or in flight). Different vocalizations are directed at different individuals as well, with some meant for competing males and some for females,
Needless to say, if you bird along Pecs' migratory pathways, we would hardly recognize the same bird on their breeding grounds.
Read more here, on Earbirding, and here, in The Auk,
A Return To Discovery
The river of discovery beckons...
Though my hiatuses (hiati?) from blogging are never deliberate, they happen sometimes. Since you last read about ornithology here, I returned to my internship at the Field Museum's Bird Division and later to my staff position at Makajawan Scout Reservation. Perhaps the highlight of the summer, though, was experiencing the full splendor that is The Cornell Lab of Ornithology through the Cornell Young Birders' Event. The people and Lab both are inspiring, to say the least. They have an incomparable ability to feed the natural history fire in your belly; I hope to bring some of that back to you.
Since this past summer, a season that was oh so short, I've continued to make music with my tuba, explore the "wilds" of Illinois and its avifauna, and work on some projects--projects like PhenCal, an inspiration-based magazine called Manifest, and maintaining my social media outreach.
But though this blog has grown quiet, the world of ornithological research has been anything but. New research has been breaking into the scene daily, some of it so exciting that I may just have to share it with you now, synopsis-style.
There is so much being learned out there right now, but it's nice to have start with some of the most interesting bits. With an awareness of that ornithological curiosity, here's some of the fruits of my gleaning through the research, Foliage-gleaner style.
Feel free to read any or none of the following, but if you do, I encourage you to read it in pieces. It's an ambitious post, sort of like three-in-one, but hey, I'm making up for lost time.
by Nick Minor read more: http://scienceofbirds.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-return-to-discovery.html?showComment=1425374473159
A Return To Discovery
The river of discovery beckons...
Though my hiatuses (hiati?) from blogging are never deliberate, they happen sometimes. Since you last read about ornithology here, I returned to my internship at the Field Museum's Bird Division and later to my staff position at Makajawan Scout Reservation. Perhaps the highlight of the summer, though, was experiencing the full splendor that is The Cornell Lab of Ornithology through the Cornell Young Birders' Event. The people and Lab both are inspiring, to say the least. They have an incomparable ability to feed the natural history fire in your belly; I hope to bring some of that back to you.
Since this past summer, a season that was oh so short, I've continued to make music with my tuba, explore the "wilds" of Illinois and its avifauna, and work on some projects--projects like PhenCal, an inspiration-based magazine called Manifest, and maintaining my social media outreach.
But though this blog has grown quiet, the world of ornithological research has been anything but. New research has been breaking into the scene daily, some of it so exciting that I may just have to share it with you now, synopsis-style.
There is so much being learned out there right now, but it's nice to have start with some of the most interesting bits. With an awareness of that ornithological curiosity, here's some of the fruits of my gleaning through the research, Foliage-gleaner style.
Feel free to read any or none of the following, but if you do, I encourage you to read it in pieces. It's an ambitious post, sort of like three-in-one, but hey, I'm making up for lost time.
by Nick Minor read more: http://scienceofbirds.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-return-to-discovery.html?showComment=1425374473159
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