Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Saturday 4 auguSt 2018

Birds learn another 'language' by eavesdropping on neighbors

By CHRISTINA LARSON around the park and con- "danger" in German simply
AP Science Writer tinued to play customized by listening to people yell
WASHINGTON (AP) — For recordings. They attempt- phrases with similar mean-
birds, understanding neigh- ed to train half the birds ings in multiple languages
borhood gossip about to recognize the thornbill's at once.
an approaching hawk or alarm cry as a warning "Until this study, we had lim-
brown snake can mean sound, and the other half ited knowledge about how
the difference between life to recognize the comput- an animal learns what calls
or death. er-generated "buzz" as a from other species actually
Wild critters are known to lis- distress call. They did that mean," said Christopher
ten to each other for clues by playing the previously Templeton, a biologist at
about lurking predators, ef- unfamiliar sounds in con- Pacific University in Forest
fectively eavesdropping on junction with noises that the Grove, Oregon, who was
other species' chatter. Birds, birds already associated not involved in the study.
for example, can learn to with danger, such as fairy Previous research had
flee when neighbors cluck This photo provided by Jessica McLachlan shows a fairy-wren. wrens' own distress cry. shown that fairy wrens can
"hawk!" — or, more precise- Scientists have discovered that birds can learn to recognize After three days, the scien- learn the meaning of dis-
ly, emit a distress call. alarm calls of other species, essentially by learning to tists tested what the birds tress calls when actually
The fairy wren, a small Aus- eavesdrop in a second language. had learned — and their encountering a predator.
tralian songbird, is not born Associated Press feathered pupils passed "What this new study does
knowing the "languages" of Birds have several ways of fairy wrens. They wanted the test. is remove the predator en-
other birds. But it can mas- The two sets of fairy wrens tirely. It shows that these
ter the meaning of a few acquiring life skills. Some to be certain that the birds responded to the sound birds can learn to associ-
knowledge is innate, and would react only to sounds,
key "words," as scientists ex- they had been trained on ate new sounds with dan-
plain in a paper published some is acquired from di- not other birds' behavior. by fleeing for cover, but ger, without having to learn
rect experience. Radford The scientists first played
Thursday in the journal Cur- remained indifferent to the through trial and error," said
rent Biology. and other scientists are the birds two unfamiliar re- other sound. Templeton.
exploring a third kind of corded sounds. One was
"We knew before that Twelve of the 16 birds fled In other words, one bird's
some animals can translate knowledge: acquiring infor- the alarm cry of an allopat- at every playback; the oth- distress tweet can go viral.
ric chestnut-rumped thorn-
mation from peers.
the meanings of other spe- er four birds fled in response "If you can only learn in
cies' 'foreign languages,' Radford and colleagues bill, a bird not native to to two-thirds or more of the the presence of a preda-
Australia. The other was a
at Australia National Uni-
but we did not know how playbacks. tor, that's quite dangerous,"
that 'language learning' versity wandered around computer-generated bird To put it in human terms, said Radford, the study co-
sound dubbed "buzz."
the Australian National Bo-
came about," said Andrew it's as though a person author. "The capacity to
Radford, a biologist at the tanic Gardens in Canberra On first hearing these who only speaks English learn by associating sounds
with customized "tweeter sounds, the 16 fairy wrens
University of Bristol and co- had learned that "Ach- with meaning makes sense,
author of the study. speakers" affixed to their had no particular reaction. tung" means "attention" or biologically."q
waists, looking for solitary The scientists then trotted
Warmer soil releasing more carbon, worsening
climate change

By SETH BORENSTEIN feeding on dead leaves Researchers found a sig- "It's a fingerprint of climate
AP Science Writer and plants, releasing more nificant increase in the change."Overall, soil re-
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even heat-trapping carbon di- amount of carbon since leases about nine times
the dirt on the ground is oxide into the air, accord- the 1990s coming out of mi- more carbon than human-
making climate change ing to a study in Wednes- crobes when compared to caused activities, but that's
worse, a new study finds. day's journal Nature . other releases of carbon. part of a natural cycle
Plants capture massive Scientists call it a vicious They analyzed sensor read- when the amount of car-
amounts of carbon, pump- cycle of warming. Burn- ings, soil measurements, bon released into the air is
This May 3, 2018 photo ing it into the soil where ing of coal, oil and natural plant growth data and sat- about equal to the carbon
provided by Benjamin usually it stays for hundreds gas heats the air and soil, ellite observations in what's taken out by oceans and
Bond-Lamberty shows or thousands of years. which worsens warming. the most comprehensive plants. Fossil fuel emissions
technician Stephanie Observations from across This uncontrolled cycle study yet of the climate knock the atmosphere
Pennington measuring the
amount of carbon dioxide the globe show that speeds up and amplifies change impacts of soil. out of balance by putting
released into the air from as temperatures have climate change, said Jerry "The world really is showing more in than comes out.
the soil at the Smithsonian warmed, bacteria and Melillo of the Marine Bio- an effect here," said lead Heated soil releases more
Environmental Research fungi in the soil are becom- logical Laboratory in Mas- researcher Ben Bond-Lam- carbon, further putting the
Center near Edgewater, Md. ing more active. These tur- sachusetts, who wasn't berty of the Pacific North- cycle out of whack, Bond-
Associated Press bo-charged microbes are part of the study. west National Laboratory. Lamberty said.
Scientists said as the world
continues to warm, the soil
will release yet more car-
bon that it has been hold-
ing.
If something isn't done, "we
are really in trouble," said
Rattan Lal of Ohio State
University, who wasn't part
of the study. q