Aeroelastic flutter of feathers, flight, and the evolution of nonvocal communication in birds

Abstract

Tonal, nonvocal sounds are widespread in both ordinary bird flight and in communication displays. We hypothesized these sounds are attributable to an aerodynamic mechanism intrinsic to flight feathers: aeroelastic flutter. Individual wing and tail feathers from 35 taxa (from 13 families) that produce tonal flight sounds were tested in a wind tunnel. In the wind tunnel all of these feathers could flutter and generate tonal sound, suggesting that the capacity to flutter is intrinsic to flight feathers. This result implies that the aerodynamic mechanism of aeroelastic flutter is potentially widespread in flight of birds. However, the sounds these feathers produced in the wind tunnel replicated the actual flight sounds of only 15 of 35 taxa. Of the 20 negative results, we hypothesize that 10 are false negatives, as the acoustic form of the flight sound suggests flutter is a likely acoustic mechanism. For 10 other taxa, we propose our negative wind tunnel results are correct, and these species do not make sounds via flutter. These sounds appear to constitute one or more mechanism(s) we call "wing whirring", the physical acoustics of which remain unknown. Our results document that the production of nonvocal communication sounds by aeroelastic flutter of flight feathers is widespread in birds. Across all birds, most evolutionary origins of wing and tail-generated communication sounds are attributable to three mechanisms: flutter, percussion, and wing whirring. Other mechanisms of sound production, such as turbulence-induced whooshes, have evolved into communication sounds only rarely, despite their intrinsic ubiquity in ordinary flight.