To sing or not to sing.

A new study may help explain why birdsong is more of a guy thing in temperate regions but plenty of females join the chorus in the tropics. Jordan Price of St. Mary's College of Maryland and colleagues reported August 15 a tight correlation between lifestyle and female singing in New World blackbirds. Among most of the species that stay put year-round and breed in monogamous, territorial pairs, females still sing. But in migratory and colonially breeding birds, for example, females have typically lost their songs.