scholarly journals Couples showing off: Audience promotes both male and female multimodal courtship display in a songbird

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. eaat4779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nao Ota ◽  
Manfred Gahr ◽  
Masayo Soma
Keyword(s):  
Animal Communication ◽  
Private Communication ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Audience Effect ◽  
Courtship Display ◽  
Mating Status ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Socially Monogamous ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
Courtship Displays

Social environments can shape animal communication. Although mutual courtship displays are generally thought to function in private communication between a male and a female, we provide experimental evidence that they work in a broader social context than previously thought. We examined the audience effect on mutual courtship in blue-capped cordon-bleus, a socially monogamous songbird. This species is characterized by conspicuous courtship shared between sexes: Both sexes sing songs and sometimes add a unique dance display that looks like human tap dancing. We found that in both sexes, multimodal courtship displays (song accompanied by dance) were promoted in the presence of an audience, especially if it was the opposite sex. In contrast, unimodal displays (song without dance) were suppressed by audiences. Because birds directed the courtship dancing toward their partners (but not the audience), multimodal courtship displays are likely meant to advertise their current mating status to other cordon-bleus.

Social experience influences preferences in black ducks and mallards

1989 ◽  
Vol 67 (6) ◽  
pp. 1434-1438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Brodsky ◽  
C. Davison Ankney ◽  
Darrell G. Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Social Preferences ◽  
Anas Platyrhynchos ◽  
Social Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Captive Population ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Potential Mate ◽  
The Social ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
Males And Females

The influence of social experience on the preferences for a potential mate in a captive population of black ducks, Anas rubripes, and mallards, Anas platyrhynchos, was examined. Birds were reared from hatching with conspecifics (i.e., female black ducks with male black ducks, female mallards with male mallards), or were cross-fostered with the other species (i.e., female black ducks with male mallards, female mallards with male black ducks). Preferences of individuals were tested in a chamber containing caged black ducks and mallards of the opposite sex. In over 90% (100/109) of the trials, males and females preferred the species that they were raised with since hatching, whether they were of the same species or not. These results demonstrate that social experience influences the social preferences of male and female black ducks and mallards.

Adults' Perceptions of Children's Independence and other Sex-Role Characteristics as a Function of Child's Gender Label

1978 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 955-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Bell ◽  
Kay Hibbs ◽  
Thomas Milholland
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Female College Students ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female College ◽  
Opposite Sex

Male and female college students were presented with a photograph labeled as a 5-yr.-old boy or girl and heard statements attributed to the child. They then rated the child on sex-role traits and responded to open-ended questions about the child. The primary findings involved sex of child by sex of adult interactions on ratings of independence and leadership: in both cases, same-sex children were rated higher than opposite-sex children. There was also some evidence that women having high contact with children rated the child more extremely on opposite-sex traits than did those with little contact.

Cross-sexual Transfer

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jane West-Eberhard
Keyword(s):  
Sex Determination ◽  
Sexually Dimorphic ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Alternative Phenotypes ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
Critical Age ◽  
Sexual Traits ◽  
Discrete Traits ◽  
Dimorphic Species ◽  
Determination Mechanism

Distinctive male and female traits are perhaps the most familiar of all divergent specializations within species. In cross-sexual transfer, discrete traits that are expressed exclusively in one sex in an ancestral species appear in the opposite sex of descendants. An example is the expression of brood care by males in a lineage where ancestral females are the exclusive caretakers of the young, as in some voles (Thomas and Birney, 1979). Despite the prominence of sexual dimorphism and sex reversals in nature, and an early explicit treatment by Darwin, discussed in the next section, cross-sexual transfer is not often recognized as a major factor in the evolution of novelty (but see, on animals, Mayr, 1963, pp. 435-439; Mayr, 1970, p. 254; on plants, Iltis, 1983). When more widely investigated, cross-sexual transfer may prove to rival heterochrony and duplication as an important source of novelties in sexually dimorphic lineages. For this reason, I devote more attention here to cross-sexual transfer than to these other, well-established general patterns of change. The male and female of a sexually dimorphic species may be so different that it is easy to forget that each individual carries most or all of the genes necessary to produce the phenotype of the opposite sex. Sex determination, like caste determination and other switches between alternative phenotypes, depends on only a few genetic loci or, in many species, environmental factors (Bull, 1983). There is considerable flexibility in sex determination and facultative reversal in some taxa. Among fish, for example, there is even a species wherein sex is determined by juvenile size at a critical age (Francis and Barlow, 1993). The sex determination mechanism, whatever its nature, leads to a series of sex-limited responses, often coordinated by hormones and not necessarily all occurring at once. A distinguishing aspect of sexually dimorphic traits in adults is that there is often a close homology between the secondary sexual traits that are differently modified in the two sexes.

scholarly journals Extrapair Fertilization in the Black-Browed Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus Bistrigiceps): Effects on Mating Status and Nesting Cycle of Cuckolded and Cuckolder Males

The Auk ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
pp. 1086-1096
Author(s):  
Shoji Hamao ◽  
Daichi S. Saito
Keyword(s):  
Incubation Period ◽  
Mate Guarding ◽  
Reed Warbler ◽  
Fertile Period ◽  
Mating Status ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Socially Monogamous ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Extrapair Copulation

Abstract We studied the relationship between the occurrence of extrapair fertilizations (EPFs) and mating status and nesting cycle of mates, respectively, in a population of Black-browed Reed Warblers (Acrocephalus bistrigiceps). Overall, 6.4% (9 of 140) of the chicks were sired by extrapair males, and 13.5% (5 of 37) of the broods contained at least one extrapair chick. Socially polygynous males were cuckolded more frequently than socially monogamous males (40.0% and 3.7%, respectively). In three of four cases where cuckolded males were polygynous, the fertile periods of their mates overlapped. Except for two floating males that obtained EPFs, five out of seven cuckolder males were paired. Males succeeded in EPFs when the fertile period of the extrapair females largely overlapped the incubation period of their own mates. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that there are trade-offs between extrapair copulation activity and both mate guarding and rearing of nestlings. Fertilisation Extraconjugale chez Acrocephalus bistrigiceps: Effets des Mâles Infidèles et Cocus sur le Statut de Couple et le Cycle de Nidification

scholarly journals Reduced cooperative behavior as a cost of high testosterone in a lekking passerine bird

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben J Vernasco ◽  
Brent M Horton ◽  
Ignacio T Moore ◽  
T Brandt Ryder
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Observational Study ◽  
Courtship Behavior ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Reproductive Traits ◽  
Passerine Bird ◽  
Courtship Display ◽  
Courtship Behaviors ◽  
Pipra Filicauda ◽  
Courtship Displays

Abstract Many studies have identified the reproductive benefits of cooperative behaviors, yet few have identified the mechanisms that underlie these behaviors. Mechanistic studies can inform our understanding of why some individuals are more or less cooperative, as well as identify the physiological constraints imposed upon the evolution of reproductive traits. Male wire-tailed manakins (Pipra filicauda) exhibit cooperative courtship behaviors and more cooperative territory holders have been shown to exhibit higher reproductive success. To begin to understand the proximate basis of cooperative display behaviors, we conducted both an observational study and an experimental study. Because coordinated courtship displays underlie this form of cooperation, our study also examined both the hormonal and social drivers of individual variation in courtship behavior more broadly (e.g., courtship display rates). Our observational study revealed that males with higher testosterone levels performed fewer cooperative display bouts. In addition, our experimental study demonstrated that the proportion of a male’s courtship displays that were cooperative decreased after being administered a testosterone-filled hormone implant. We found no relationship between an individual’s courtship display effort (i.e., display rate and time spent performing courtship displays) and circulating testosterone in either study. However, more cooperative males spent a greater proportion of time performing courtship displays than did less cooperative males, suggesting that testosterone may indirectly mediate courtship display behaviors by influencing a territory holder’s cooperative behavior. Overall, both our observational and experimental results suggest that reduced cooperative behavior is a cost of maintaining high levels of testosterone for territory-holding males.

Reciprocity of Liking following Face-to-Face Encounters with Attractive and Unattractive others

1986 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 599-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warner Wilson ◽  
Wilma Henzlik
Keyword(s):  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Introductory Psychology ◽  
Female Students ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strong Tendency ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Opposite Sex

48 male and female students in introductory psychology engaged in a get acquainted conversation with a confederate of the opposite sex. After the conversation, the experimenter asked each person to rate the other and indicated that they would then see each other's ratings as a part of the acquaintance process. Immediately after the first ratings were exchanged, however, the experimenter asked both subjects for a second confidential rating. According to prior instructions, the confederate gave either positive (7 to 9) or negative (3 to 6) preliminary ratings. The second rating, which was of liking, showed a strong tendency for the subjects to reciprocate the favorability of the first ratings made of them by the confederate. Attractive more than unattractive confederates were better liked. In contrast to previous research, however, data showed no tendency for subjects to respond more strongly to positive or negative feedback from an attractive rather than from an unattractive other.

Draw-a-Person Protocols of Male and Female College Students

1967 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 873-879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Soccolich ◽  
Boleslaw A. Wysocki
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Sexual Conflict ◽  
Female College Students ◽  
Strong Tendency ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female College ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
Males And Females

A purely male vs female differentiation of D-A-P test variables was attempted for 50 male and 50 female college students or graduates of 3 yr. or less. Analysis of sex and aggression variables revealed much emphasis and conflict in these areas in the drawings of both males and females. Sexual conflict was almost always expressed in the drawings of the opposite sex alone. A generalized psychosexual immaturity was demonstrated in the drawings of male Ss. Female Ss seemed to exhibit conflict over masculine orientation and ‘role’ inversion in their drawings. In addition, a strong tendency toward ‘evasion,’ a wish to ‘not see’ or ‘perceive vaguely,’ was heavily evidenced in the drawings of both male and, to a lesser extent, female Ss.

Quantitative studies on Heterakis gallinarum infections in the common fowl, Gallus gallus L.

1975 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 229-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. M. Fine
Keyword(s):  
Differential Mortality ◽  
Migration Patterns ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Heterakis Gallinarum ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So

ABSTRACTThe fertility, mortality, and migration patterns of Heterakis gallinarum were studied in chickens with concomitant Parahistomonas wenrichi infections. H. gallinarum females were found to produce approximately 936 ova per day, when 50 days of age, and a total of 34,000 to 86,000 ova in a lifetime. There was no evidence of differential mortality between the sexes, nor of a preference for either the left or the right caecal organ of chickens. Both male and female worms are capable of migrating between caeca, and are especially prone to do so when in the absence of individuals of the opposite sex.

Male courtship displays and vocal communication in the polygynous bat Carollia perspicillata

Behaviour ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 151 (6) ◽  
pp. 781-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam Knörnschild ◽  
Marion Feifel ◽  
Elisabeth K.V. Kalko
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Mate Recognition ◽  
Courtship Behaviour ◽  
Male Courtship ◽  
Courtship Display ◽  
Carollia Perspicillata ◽  
Fruit Bat ◽  
Distress Calls ◽  
Individual Signature ◽  
Courtship Displays

Male courtship behaviour towards choosy females often comprises elaborate displays that address multiple sensory channels. In bats, detailed quantitative descriptions of multimodal courtship displays are still fairly scarce, despite the taxon’s speciose nature. We studied male courtship behaviour in a polygynous Neotropical bat, Seba’s short-tailed fruit bat Carollia perspicillata, by monitoring harem males in a captive colony. Courting male C. perspicillata performed stereotypic tactile, visual and acoustic displays. A courtship sequence, directed at one female at a time, lasted up to 120 s. During courtship, males approached females by brachiating or flying, hovered in front of them, pursued them on the wing, sniffed them and repeatedly poked the females with one or both folded wings; the latter behaviour was the most conspicuous male courtship display. Immediately before copulation, males wrapped their wings around the females and bit their necks. As acoustic display, courting male C. perspicillata produced highly variable, monosyllabic courtship trills. The species’ vocal repertoire consisted of ten different social vocalisation types, three for benign interactions (courtship trills, wobbles, isolation calls), four for aggressive encounters (aggressive trills, down-sweeps, warbles, distress calls) and the remaining three for unknown behavioural contexts (V-shaped calls, flat down-sweeps, hooks). Courtship trills and aggressive trills were exclusively produced by males. We measured 245 courtship trills of five males and found statistical evidence for a strong individual signature which has the potential to facilitate female choice, mate recognition or neighbour–stranger recognition among male competitors.

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