There were ten out of 15 song responses to duets and only three out of 15 song responses to solos. There was a higher likelihood of response to duet playbacks than to solo playbacks in the form of song or physical approach. This study presented conspecific playbacks of solo and duet songs to the territories of paired Gray-breasted Wood-wrens (Henicorhina leucostica) in Monteverde, Costa Rica to determine the purpose of duet response songs. The Acoustic Mate Guarding theory predicts that pairs sing duets because one bird in the pair joins its mate’s song to prevent solo singing and thus repel stranger birds of the same sex that pose a threat to their partnership. Under Joint Territorial Defense theory, pairs sing duets to better defend their territories. The Joint Territorial Defense and Acoustic Mate Guarding hypotheses explain duetting as either a cooperative form of song, in which a pair is working together to accomplish a common goal, or conflicting form of song, in which each bird in a pair is singing for individual motives. Avian duetting is one form of bird song that is especially common in the tropics but whose function is still not well understood. ![]() Bird song serves a wide variety of functions.
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