Social Networks and Vocal Learning in Budgerigars
Completed master’s thesis
Study objective
The thesis tests whether longitudinal change in individual vocal repertoires is associated with position and relationship structure within experimentally manipulated fission–fusion social networks.
Approach
The project combined controlled colony experiments, manual behavioural annotation, automated video capture, social-network analysis, and acoustic analysis. Network-derived predictors were related to acoustic structure at the note, motif, and sequence levels as group composition and social relationships changed.
Scientific context
Budgerigars permit repeated measurement of learned vocal behaviour within dynamic social groups. The project addresses whether network position and changing association patterns explain vocal change beyond effects that can be estimated from isolated dyads.
Project status
This work formed the master’s thesis for my BS–MS degree at IISER Pune. I conducted the research in the ECEB Lab at JNCASR under the supervision of Anand Krishnan. No public manuscript or associated analysis package is currently linked; those outputs will be added if and when they become publicly available.