The complex song of the warbling vireo

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Abstract
The song of the warbling vireo (Vireo gilvus) was described as a nested hierarchy consisting of four levels: song, figure patterns, figures, and figure regions. Song appeared to be organized as a set of nested undulations or cycles of tone of between 2 and 160 Hz. The dominant feature of song is its complex rhythmic structure. The complexity of song was considered to result from flexibility in the rules which governed how undulations on the various levels were combined. The first and last three figures of song showed characteristic shape. The figure repertoire was graded in form and similar among individuals. Figure patterns gradually changed in consecutive songs and during the season, forming what appeared to be a continuously changing set of themes with variations. Despite this variation, neighbouring males shared a greater number of figure patterns in their repertoires than more distant males. Redundancy, as measured in the first half of song, increased at the onset of nest building and was greatest when the male was sitting on the nest. Characters or structures in song that potentially encode species, individual, contextual, or motivational information were described.

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