Wind of change

Hello everybody, my Name is Daniel, I study landscape ecology in Münster, Germany. The last 3 months I spent in Santa Cruz to collect data for my diploma thesis. Its about the vocalization of the Bolivian Grey Tit, but more about that below.
One of the most remarkable phase during the typical day of a titi usually starts between 6 and 9 in the morning.
The first family starts to sing a duett, so the adults and sometimes the older offspring start to vocalize together to point out which is their territory. And this gives the signal to all the other groups in Yvaga Guazu. Other groups start to vocalize and a small research site like Yvaga Guazu can become pretty loud.


G2 in action

Due the small and often overlapping territories in Yvaga Guazu different groups have different opinions about which part of the forrest belong to them, so the vocalization rate is much higher as in bigger research sites like for example the botanical garden in Santa Cruz with its round about 180ha.
My project lead me to Yvaga Guazu to find out how wind and the noise it produces influences the vocalization of the titis. Windy conditions influence the transmission of the monkeys calls, so it´s more difficult to transfer information to other families or to other members of their own group. So do the call louder? Do they call more often? Or do they modify their frequencies?
That´s what I tried to find out during the past three months when you could see me in field armed with micropohne and recorder.
Today I just finished my last day of field work and in a while the analyse will show how big the effects of the wind are.
So far I can say that it´s just awesome to hear the monkeys in the field. As the pictures show it´s not only about calling, it´s a pretty impressive performance.

GE making a statement