Research Interests

I have conducted research in various aspects of the behavioral ecology of birds. However, my major interest is the functional significance of variation in bird vocalizations, especially bird song. While it is known generally that bird songs are species-specific, they also show complex variation at many other levels. Within species, the structure of songs may vary with motivation, or from individual to individual, or from local population to local population. This multi-level variation has stimulated research into its nature and significance - how do birds use this variation when communicating and interacting with other individuals. My own research has dealt especially with the evolution of song repertoires (an individual uses several different song patterns) and with the significance of song "dialects" (different geographic populations exhibit distinctive song patterns).

Most research on song variation has dealt with oscine passerine birds (commonly known as "songbirds"), in which young birds copy songs heard early in life. Indeed, avian song learning is an important "model" system for studying the development of learned behavior. It is generally accepted that this learning provides the mechanism for generating and maintaining the complex variation that functions in a variety of manners. Recently, I have become interested in song variation in the most primitive group of songbirds, suboscine passerines, in which learning apparently plays no part in song development. These birds develop normal songs even when unable to hear other birds singing. In recent years my students and I have initiated a series of studies of song variation and singing behavior in several species of Empidonax flycatchers in western Albera.  A major goal of these studies is to determine whether suboscines can use the limited variation in their "innate" songs to meet the same behavioral challenges as do the "advanced" oscines.

Courses Taught

Awards

2002 - Member, International Ornithological Committee

Selected publications

• Lein, M. R.  2008.  Song variation in Buff-breasted Flycatchers (Empidonax fulvifrons).  Wilson Journal of Ornithology 120: 000-000.
• Lein, M. R.  2007.  Patterns of dawn singing in Buff-breasted Flycatchers.  Journal of Field Ornithology  78: 343-351.
• Lein, M. R.  2006.  Obituary.  Ernst Mayr, 1904-2005.  Ibis 148: 389-391.
• Lein, M. R.  2005.  Ernst Mayr as a life-long naturalist.  Pp. 17-29 in Bock, W. J., and M. R. Lein (eds).  Ernst Mayr at 100: Ornithologist and Naturalist.  Ornithological Monograph No. 58.
• Bock, W. J., and M. R. Lein (Eds.).  2005a.  Ernst Mayr at 100: Ornithologist and Naturalist.  Ornithological Monograph No. 58.  108 pp.
• Lovell, S. F., and M. R. Lein. 2005. Indivividual recognition of neighbors by song in a suboscine bird, the Alder Flycatcher. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 57: in press.
• Lovell, S. F., and M. R. Lein. 2004. Neighbor-stranger discrimination by song in a suboscine bird, the Alder Flycatcher Empidonax alnorum. Behavioral Ecolory 15: 799-804.
• Lovell, S. F., and M. R. Lein. 2004. Song variation in a population of Alder Flycatchers. Journal of Field Ornithology 75: 146-151.
• Wiebe, M. O., and M. R. Lein. 2003. Response of male Mountain Chickadees Poecile gambeli to playback of different song types. Canadian Field-Naturalist 117: 76-81.
• Chilton, G. and M.R. Lein. 1996. Songs and sexual responses of female White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) from a mixed-dialect population. Behaviour. 133: 173-198.
• Chilton, G. and M.R. Lein. 1996. Long-term changes in songs and song dialect boundaries of Puget Sound White-crowned Sparrows. Condor, 98: 567-580.
• Lein, M.R. and K.W. Corbin. 1990. Song and plumage phenotypes in a contact zone between subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys). Can. J. Zool. 68: 2625-2629.
• Chilton, G., M.R. Lein and L.F. Baptista. 1990. Mate choice by female White-crowned Sparrows in a mixed-dialect population. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 27: 223-227.
• Hill, B.G. and M.R. Lein. 1989. Natural and simulated encounters between sympatric Black-capped Chickadees and Mountain Chickadees. Auk. 106: 645-652.