Widespread cultural change in declining populations of Amazon parrots

Abstract

Species worldwide are experiencing anthropogenic environmental change, and the long-term impacts on animal cultural traditions such as vocal dialects are often unknown. Our prior studies of the yellow-naped amazon ( Amazona auropalliata ) revealed stable vocal dialects over an 11-year period (1994–2005), with modest shifts in geographic boundaries and acoustic structure of contact calls. Here, we examined whether yellow-naped amazons maintained stable dialects over the subsequent 11-year time span from 2005 to 2016, culminating in 22 years of study. Over this same period, this species suffered a dramatic decrease in population size that prompted two successive uplists in IUCN status, from vulnerable to critically endangered. In this most recent 11-year time span, we found evidence of geographic shifts in call types, manifesting in more bilingual sites and introgression across the formerly distinct North–South acoustic boundary. We also found greater evidence of acoustic drift, in the form of new emerging call types and greater acoustic variation overall. These results suggest cultural traditions such as dialects may change in response to demographic and environmental conditions, with broad implications for threatened species.