Practical Ecology Course: Behavioural Ecology of Sylvia atricapilla

As part of a practical ecology course in the first year of biology at the ENS of Lyon, we used recorded bird strophes from various species to create audio files for broadcast to S. atricapilla males, enabling the study of their territorial behavior in response to both conspecific and heterospecific males.

Project Overview

• Objective: Analyze the territorial behavior of S. atricapilla males using synthesized bird songs.
• Method: Create bird songs by mixing strophes from individual birds to produce new songs with specific structures, repeated on different individuals of several species.

Folder Structure

• Sampling_Audio_Files.Rproj: R project file used to manage and organize the project within RStudio.
• Strophe_Automatic_Sampling.qmd: Notebook which create the new songs randomly.
• Strophe_Sampling_Functions.R: R file containing all functions used in Strophe_Automatic_Sampling.qmd file.
• results: This is the folder where the audio files generated by the Strophe_Automatic_Sampling.qmd script will be saved.
• Strophe_Bank_WAV: This folder have to contain the strophe audio files used for creating the complete bird songs. Although .wav format is preferred here due to issues met with .mp3, the project can support .mp3 files if the code is adjusted accordingly and a proper strophe bank is built.

How to Use

1. Clone or download the entire repository;
2. Fill the Strophe_Bank_WAV folder with your chosen strophe audio files;
3. Open the Sampling_Audio_Files.Rproj file;
4. Run the Strophe_Automatic_Sampling.qmd notebook to generate the complete bird songs in the results folder.

Contact

If you encounter any issues while using this repository, you may contact me at paul.petit@ens-lyon.fr.

Feel free to explore, modify, and enhance the project as needed for your research and educational purposes.