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Evolution of song culture in the zebra finch

Similar to humans, juvenile songbirds learn their vocal repertoire by imitating adult individuals. When raised in social and acoustic isolation, birds can still sing, but they produce a highly abnormal song. What happens when such an abnormal song is culturally transmitted over generations? To examine this question we placed an isolate (non-tutored) adult bird in a large sound box together with females (who do not sing) and allowed them to breed for a few generations, while recording audio and video so as to track the social interactions and singing behavior. We found that the juveniles readily imitated the isolate song of their father, and yet, small but systematic variations in vocal performance accumulated over generations such that the third generation of learners already sang normal zebra finch song. Here we investigate this cultural evolution process.