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The bewildering courtship phenotypes of male birds of paradise (Paradisaedae) represent a classic example of sexual selection through mate choice. While the majority of sexual selection studies have focused on either mate choice or intrasexual competition, males across a variety of taxa adopt alternative mating tactics as additional means of obtaining fertilization when they are otherwise unable to...
Male spotted bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus maculatus) build and defend a structure of sticks and straw—the bower—decorated with colourful objects to attract mates during the breeding season. Specific non‐territorial, subordinate males are tolerated by resident males at bowers over multiple breeding seasons. Prior research showed that these male–male associations exhibit attributes of coalitionary behaviour...
Communication is generally assumed to be the domain of conspecific signallers and receivers that produce reliable signals and respond adaptively. However, interactions between coexisting species can be surprisingly complex, suggesting that animals not only perceive but also selectively respond to signals produced by other species. Many species respond to the vocalisations of heterospecifics, but it...
Courtship displays are complex behaviours that evolve mainly through sexual selection. Males of golden‐collared manakins (Manacus vitellinus) gather in leks and perform very elaborate courtship displays in forest courts to attract females. The rapid movements of the display, that involve acrobatic jumps between saplings, are challenging to record and investigate. Here we describe the use of a combination...
Birdsong is culturally transmitted, and geographical variations of song have been found in several songbird species. There is evidence that such dialects contribute to reproductive isolation through variation in female preference. In the wild, there is no report of consistent dialects in populations of zebra finches. However, under laboratory conditions, we were able to artificially create different...
Animals gather information about their environment from a variety of sources to enable adaptive decision‐making behaviour. Eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm calls enhances predator avoidance, reduces time spent vigilant and allows for more time on daily activities such as foraging. If the information is relevant and reliable, individuals that respond to heterospecific signals may benefit from...
Songbirds of many species acquire their songs by imitating the songs of conspecific singers. Conclusive evidence of such imitation comes from controlled laboratory studies, but such studies do not reveal when and where songbirds learn their songs under natural conditions. To determine the timing and location of song learning in a population of prairie warblers, we compared the songs of yearling prairie...
Vocal signals mediate social relationships, and among networks of territorial animals, information is often shared via broadcast vocalizations. Anthropogenic noise may disrupt communication among individuals within networks, as animals change the way they vocalize in noise. Furthermore, constraints on signal transmission, including frequency masking and distance, may affect information exchange following...
Scent‐marking is an important form of communication for solitary species, as the information remains for the receiver after the sender has left the area. Individuals of different demographic or dominance classes (ranks) need to provide different information to conspecifics. Therefore, the use of scent‐marking sites is of particular value for solitary species, but their functional role may vary between...
In order to breed successfully, organisms exhibit multiple strategies to enhance mate attraction, such as elaborate physical ornamentation, behavioral courtship displays, and social interactions, leading to competition or cooperation among potential mates. Within lek mating systems, species evolve under strong sexual selection, which promotes the evolution of exaggerated sexual traits such as male...
Animal communication is an important aspect of ecology across taxa, and there is a growing area of research that examines how animals plastically adjust their signals to account for both abiotic and biotic factors. Song type use and the temporal plasticity of song have been described in many bird species, but as of yet, few studies have examined how song type use may change across both seasonal and...
Anti‐predatory strategies of birds are diverse and may include predator‐specific alarm calls. For example, oriental tit (Parus minor) parents can distinguish snakes from other predators and produce snake‐specific referential vocalizations ("jar" call) when a snake poses a threat to their nest. The “jar” call has a very specific function to induce fledging of nestlings close to fledging age...
Courtship displays are typically comprised of the same behavioral pattern, or patterns, repeated several times by males. Both the quantity and quality of the displays produced by a given male bird are not, however, constant. The number and/or quality of displays can decrease over time, indicating fatigue, or males can increase the number and/or quality as they display more, indicating a warm‐up period...
A male Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) turns his head towards the sound of the drumming display of another male.Photograph reproduced with the permission of AN Iwaniuk, based on Research Paper, Courtship display speed varies daily and with body size in the Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) by EC Déaux et al.,https://doi.org/10.1111/eth.13004
Individual organisms vary in personality, and the ecological consequences of that variation can affect the strength of predator–prey interactions. Prey with bolder tendencies can mitigate the strength of species interactions by altering growth and initiating ontogenetic niche shifts (ONS). While the link between personality and growth has been established, recent research has highlighted the important...
Despite continuing interest in the proximate energetic constraints on individual variation in behavior, there is presently equivocal evidence for correlations between metabolism and behavior at the among‐individual level. Possible reasons for this include imprecise estimates of individual mean behavior and metabolism due to no repeated measures on one or more of the traits, analyses that do not take...
In anurans, vocalisation is used to communicate within and between the sexes during reproduction. Knowledge of vocal repertoire and its diversity is essential in understanding its significance in sexual selection. In this context, we studied the vocal behaviour of Nyctibatrachus humayuni and quantified the urinary metabolites of androgens and corticosterone to understand the associations among hormones,...
The study of avian migration physiology has advanced substantially in the past few decades, yet despite the key role of migratory stopovers in influencing total migration time, our knowledge on the physiological control of this crucial stage is still scarce. Research in stopover physiology has recently taken new directions and uncovered new mechanisms which help us understand how multiple internal...
Many species approach predators to harass them and drive them away. Both the intensity of this antipredator strategy and its success are positively related to the size of the group that carries out this mobbing. To recruit individuals to the mob, members of prey species produce mobbing calls. In some songbirds—the Japanese tit, Parus minor, and the southern pied babbler, Turdoides bicolor—mobbing...
Acoustic signals play a key role in shaping the relationships in birds. Common cuckoos Cuculus canorus are known to produce various call types, but the function of these calls has only been studied recently. Here, we used a combination of field recordings (conducted in 2017) and playback experiments (conducted in 2018) to investigate the functional significance of common cuckoo calls. We found significant...
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