Data from: Neotropical wrens learn new duet rules as adults

Although song development in songbirds has been much studied as an analogue of language development in humans, the development of vocal interaction rules has been relatively neglected in both groups. Duetting avian species provide an ideal model to address the acquisition of interaction rules as duet structure involves time and pattern-specific relationships among the vocalizations from different individuals. In this study, we address the development of the most striking properties of duets: the specific answering rules that individuals use to link their own phrase types to those of their partners (duet codes) and precise temporal coordination. By performing two removal experiments in canebrake wrens (Cantorchilus zeledoni), we show that individuals use a fixed phrase repertoire to create new phrase pairings when they acquire a new partner. Furthermore, immediately after pairing, individuals perform duets with poor coordination and poor duet code adherence, but both aspects improve with time. These results indicate that individuals need a learning period to be able to perform well-coordinated duets that follow a consistent duet code. We conclude that both duet coordination and duet code adherence are honest indicators of pair-bond duration.Duet codes H for RRaw data of indices of diversity for established and new pairsDuet codes sharing o good for RPhrase sharing between old and new mates E2H index by dateDiversity indices through timerandomization resultsOverlap indices raw datarepsizefor rIndividual repertoire sizes pre and post mate removalold vs new coordinationOverlap indices of established vs new pairsCoordination E1Temporal coordination Experiment 1overlapinpbckexp.csvAnswer proportion E1Proportion of phrases answered across treatments E1tx pbck experiment 2013 and 2014 analysis.csvR code Supplementary documentR code used for both experiment