Mike Webber (source code)

= Mike Webber
{c}

<Mike Webber> coauthored a 1978 experimental study with <John Krebs> and <Ruth Ashcroft> on <birdsong> and <territory> defence in the <great tit>. The paper compared aspects of song repertoires as signals used in maintaining territories.<Song repertoires and territory defence in the great tit by John Krebs and others>[Primary byline and Abstract; repertoire experiments]{ref}

A central design feature was playback: a loudspeaker can reproduce an acoustic cue while separating it from the presence of a resident animal. This makes a sound signal experimentally manipulable. A difference in settlement after playback is evidence about the signal's effect in the tested situation; it does not by itself show how an arriving bird internally represents the singer. The contribution verified here is the joint experiment rather than a separately documented division of labour among its authors.