# Scientists in France have discovered the building blocks of the incredible diversity of birdsong, regarded as one of the natural world’s most sophisticated forms of sound-based communication. A team analysed over 100-thousand songs from three-thousand bird species and revealed they are all composed of eight fundamental types of sound that the researchers call motifs. A key finding was that the environment the birds evolved in, from tropical forests to temperate landscape, shaped how they compose their songs. If their environment is destroyed, the song may disappear too.
Scientists find the secret of birdsong diversity