Female preference for fly song: playback experiments confirm the targets of sexual selection

1998 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 713-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL G RITCHIE ◽  
RICHARD M TOWNHILL ◽  
ANNELI HOIKKALA
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Female Preference ◽  
Playback Experiments ◽  
Song Playback

scholarly journals Song discrimination by male Mourning Warblers (Geothlypis philadelphia) and implications for population divergence across the breeding range

2015 ◽  
Vol 128 (4) ◽  
pp. 408
Author(s):  
Jay Pitocchelli
Keyword(s):  
Nova Scotia ◽  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Geographic Variation ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Population Divergence ◽  
Playback Experiments ◽  
Breeding Range ◽  
Song Discrimination ◽  
Song Types ◽  
Song Playback

Geographic variation in song may reduce or eliminate the ability of some populations to recognize each other as conspecifics, possibly leading to assortative mating, reproductive isolation, and speciation. Song playback experiments, used to evaluate the significance of geographic variation in song, have been particularly useful in discovering divergence among previously unknown populations of sibling species. In this study, I report the results of song playback to male Mourning Warblers (Geothlypis philadelphia) from populations throughout the breeding range and discuss the implications for population divergence. Four regions in the breeding range contain unique song types or regiolects: western, eastern, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. Results of reciprocal song playback experiments showed that males from the western and Newfoundland regiolects respond more aggressively to songs in their own regiolect than those in the other regiolects. Interior populations, i.e., eastern and Nova Scotia regions, showed little or no difference in aggressive response toward their own versus other regiolects. This pattern may be due to a combination of geographic proximity of populations belonging to different regiolects, song learning, experience, and contact during migration. Song discrimination by populations from the western Prairie Provinces and Newfoundland is consistent with the existence of at least partial reproductive isolation at the geographic extremes of the breeding range.

Female Choice in the Midwife Toads (Alytes Obstetricans and a. Cisternasii)

Behaviour ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 132 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Márquez
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Hatching Success ◽  
Female Preference ◽  
Dominant Frequency ◽  
Female Fitness ◽  
Significant Preference ◽  
Male Size ◽  
Low Frequencies ◽  
Behavioural Mechanism ◽  
Alytes Obstetricans

AbstractA previous study reported that large males had greater mating success than small males in two species of midwife toads. A behavioural mechanism that would explain such a pattern is sought. Dominant frequency is inversely correlated with male size in Alytes obstetricans and A. cisternasii. In both cases, two-speaker playback tests with synthetic calls show that females have a significant preference for calls with low frequencies. The results shows that female preference may impose directional sexual selection upon a static acoustic character that is correlated with male size. Male Alytes tend their eggs on land, but male size is not correlated with hatching success. Therefore female preference for larger males does not appear to directly increase female fitness.

scholarly journals Genetic association between male attractiveness and female differential allocation

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan L Head ◽  
John Hunt ◽  
Robert Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Genetic Association ◽  
Reproductive Effort ◽  
Female Preference ◽  
Acheta Domesticus ◽  
Female Size ◽  
Differential Allocation ◽  
Male Attractiveness ◽  
Analogous Manner

Differential allocation of reproductive effort towards offspring of attractive mates is a form of post-copulatory mate choice. Although differential allocation has been demonstrated in many taxa, its evolutionary implications have received little attention. Theory predicts that mate choice will lead to a positive genetic correlation between female preference and male attractiveness. This prediction has been upheld for pre-copulatory mate choice, but whether such a relationship between male attractiveness and female differential allocation exists has never been tested. Here, we show that both female pre-copulatory mate choice and post-copulatory differential allocation are genetically associated with male attractiveness in house crickets, Acheta domesticus . Daughters of attractive males mated sooner and laid more eggs when paired with larger males. These forms of mate choice are strongest in large females, suggesting that costs decrease with increasing female size. The genetic association between attractiveness and differential allocation suggests potential for differential allocation to become exaggerated by coevolutionary runaway processes in an analogous manner to pre-copulatory choice. Sexual selection is thus likely to be stronger than predicted by pre-copulatory choice alone.

scholarly journals Selection on sperm morphology under relaxed sperm competition in a wild passerine bird

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Calhim ◽  
Helene M Lampe ◽  
Tore Slagsvold ◽  
Tim R Birkhead
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Sperm Competition ◽  
Sperm Morphology ◽  
Reproductive Traits ◽  
Female Preference ◽  
Passerine Bird ◽  
High Heritability ◽  
Individual Consistency ◽  
Sperm Size

Theories regarding the role of sexual selection on the evolution of sperm traits are based on an association between pre-copulatory (e.g. female preference) and post-copulatory (e.g. ejaculate quality) male reproductive traits. In tests of these hypotheses, sperm morphology has rarely been used, despite its high heritability and intra-individual consistency. We found evidence of selection for longer sperm through positive phenotypic associations between sperm size and the two major female preference traits in the pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca . Our results support the sexually selected sperm hypothesis in a species under low sperm competition and demonstrate that natural and pre-copulatory sexual selection forces should not be overlooked in studies of intraspecific sperm morphology evolution.

FEMALE RESPONSES TO MALE COOS IN THE COLLARED DOVE STREPTOPELIA DECAOCTO

Behaviour ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 139 (10) ◽  
pp. 1287-1302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Secondi ◽  
Carel Ten Cate ◽  
Merijn De Bakker
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Sexual Function ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Species Recognition ◽  
Female Preference ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Preference Learning ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
Female Responses ◽  
Low Activity

AbstractBirdsong is one of the main models in sexual selection studies. Most investigations focused on oscines in which male song and female preference learning occur. Yet, some non-oscines are well suited for such studies as well. In Columbidae song learning does not occur. However, like in oscines, song is involved in inter- and intra-sexual interactions. Surprisingly, experimental evidence of female song-based preferences are still largely lacking in this group. We conducted playback tests on wild-caught Streptopelia decaocto females. We tested for the sexual function of song by playing decaocto songs versus songs of an unrelated species. We then investigated female responses to trill. Although they do not produce this trait, males react more strongly to artificially trilled decaocto songs, i.e. to conspecific songs in which a trill from a S. roseogrisea song has been inserted, than to normal decaocto songs. We also tested female responses to S. roseogrisea songs. Females flew more often and with a shorter latency during decaocto songs than during wren songs, suggesting that species recognition occurred, but we found no evidence of preference for trilled decaocto songs. The low activity observed during the experiment might have obscured actual preferences. Nevertheless, females consistently reacted more to normal decaocto songs than to trilled decaocto or roseogrisea songs. This contrasts with the strong responses for trilled decaocto songs and the virtual lack of reaction to S. roseogrisea songs observed in males. Thus, female collared doves, as receivers, may have different characteristics from males and impose constraints on the evolution of song.

Dialect Discrimination by White-Crowned Sparrows: Reactions to Near and Distant Dialects

The Auk ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 100 (2) ◽  
pp. 452-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana F. Tomback ◽  
Daniel B. Thompson ◽  
Myron Charles Baker
Keyword(s):  
Playback Experiments ◽  
Zonotrichia Leucophrys ◽  
Marin County ◽  
Song Dialects ◽  
Song Playback

Abstract In Marin County, California, the dialect populations of Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli are contiguous, and there is little dialect mixing. The possible importance of male-male interactions in preventing dialect mixing was tested with song-playback experiments. Males of the Limantour dialect were presented the Limantour dialect, Drake or Buzzy dialects (neighboring), or Clear dialect (distant). From previous work, we predicted that Limantour males would respond with equal or more aggression to songs of immediately neighboring dialects in comparison with their own dialect but would respond at lower levels to a distant dialect. Instead, we found that Limantour males sang significantly more songs in response to the Limantour dialect than to either neighboring or distant dialects, although the response decreased with distance, as expected. These results led us to hypothesize that responses to an alien dialect may be influenced by (1) opportunity to habituate to the alien dialect, (2) recency of divergence of the two dialects, (3) recency of contact of the two dialects, and (4) sounds common in aggressive vocalizations in other contexts being also present in some song dialects but not others.

Priority of precedence: receiver psychology, female preference for leading calls and sexual selection in insect choruses

2014 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 175-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginie Party ◽  
Odette Brunel-Pons ◽  
Michael D. Greenfield
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Female Preference
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