IF MUSIC be the food of love, play on. It certainly seems to do the trick for zebra finches. Hearing a large choir of colony-mates encourages males and females to breed. This means their chicks all hatch at around the same time, and the vast numbers make them less vulnerable to predators.
In 1938, British ecologist Fraser Darling suggested that social stimulation helped birds synchronise breeding with their neighbours. Now researchers have observed this for the first time. Joseph Waas, now at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, and his team played recordings of zebra finch colonies at…
