Cost of an elaborate trait: a trade-off between attracting females and maintaining a clean ornament

McCullough, Erin L.; Chou, Chun-Chia; Backwell, Patricia R. Y.

doi:10.1093/beheco/araa072

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Across twenty-nine species and three weapon types (horns, tusks, antlers), as males evolved to invest relatively more than conspecific females in building larger weapons, they invested relatively less than conspecific females in building larger brains. Past studies support physiological and behavioral tradeoffs when males possess large, exaggerated weapons (e.g., reduced limbs ( Emlen, 2001 ; Simmons & Tomkins, 1996 ), reduced efforts in nuptial gift giving ( Liu et al, 2015 ), survival rate ( Douhard et al, 2020 ; Garratt et al, 2015 ) or increased grooming time ( Allen & Levinton, 2007 ; McCullough et al, 2020 )) but this is the first study to show that males may suffer reductions in relative brain size for the development and maintenance of elaborate sexual weapons.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Brains vs Brawn: Relative brain size is sexually dimorphic amongst weapon bearing ruminants

Lopez,

Tupas,

Stankowich

2023

Preprint

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Here, we investigate the relationship between relative brain size and sexual weapons in ruminants. In most cases, sexual weaponry is heavily male-biased, and costs resulting from growing, maintaining, or wielding weapons will be suffered primarily by males. We used comparative phylogenetic analyses to test whether increased investment in sexual weapon size (tusks, antlers, and horns) across four families (Tragulidae, Moschidae, Cervidae, and Bovidae) was associated with decrease in relative brain size, and whether the difference in weapon investment relative to conspecific females led to sexual differences in relative brain size. We found no relationship between relative brain size and relative weapon size within males or females, but when we compared males directly to conspecific females, we found that as males possessed larger weaponry, they had smaller brain sizes, regardless of weapon type. Our finding suggest male investment in some types of elaborate weapons could be related to male reduction in larger brains.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Brains vs Brawn: Relative brain size is sexually dimorphic amongst weapon bearing ruminants

Lopez,

Tupas,

Stankowich

2023

Preprint

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“…Preening and feather arranging are both forms of maintenance behavior in birds that are essential for maintaining feather quality by eliminating dirt and oil (Ismail et al 2020;McCullough et al 2020) or lowering the prevalence of ectoparasites (Waite et al 2012). All bird species depend on healthy feathers to maintain their body heat, which can only occur when the feathers are in good condition (Nascimento et al 2014).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brood care behavior of the painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) in Peninsular Malaysia

et al. 2022

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Abstract. Zakaria MA, Daud UNS, Mansor MS, Md. Nor S. 2022. Brood care behavior of the painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) in Peninsular Malaysia. Biodiversitas 23: 5406-5411. Waterbirds can serve as bio-indicators for their surrounding environments, indicating issues such as habitat degradation and climate change. One factor that contributes to successful reproduction for many bird species is parental behavior during the brood care stage. The painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) is a waterbird species that provide biparental care throughout the breeding season. Although many studies have focused on populations of this species, information about their behavior, particularly during nestling rearing, remains lacking. Hence, this study was conducted to examine the parental behavior of painted storks between the early and late stages of brood care in two different colonies located in Peninsular Malaysia: Tasik Shah Alam (TSA) in Selangor and Upper Bisa Putrajaya Wetland (UBPW) in Putrajaya from May to September 2016. Three pairs of painted storks were monitored in every site, and seven behaviors were identified: roosting, preening, nest repair, wing opening, flying, feeding and brooding. Of all the behaviors recorded, flying, roosting and wing-opening behavior were the most frequently observed behaviors in both study areas during the early stage of brood care. However, painted storks were found to spend most of their time flying when the chicks had grown up by the late stage. This may be due to the food demand for the parents and their chicks. As the nestlings grow bigger, more food is required before the nestling can fledge independently. This is supported by increased feeding frequency observed from the early to late stages. Males were found to have a higher frequency of all behaviors than females. This data facilitates a greater understanding of painted stork behavior, which can help in their conservation and management processes.

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“…The evolution of weapons and ornaments are driven by intra-sexual competition and inter-sexual competition, or a combination of these processes. [41,42] Apart from maintenance MR, other distinct organismspecific costs may be important in shaping the scaling of these exagger-ated traits, such as social costs, [43] the costs associated with the behavioral upkeep of traits such as cleaning, grooming and preening, [44] potential costs of fracture [45] additional fitness costs of predation [46] and parasitism [47,48] or reduced energy intake as a result of exaggerated structures. [49] In this review, I focus on energetic maintenance MR.…”

Section: Locomotion/ Routine Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive allometry of sexually selected traits: Do metabolic maintenance costs play an important role?

Somjee

2021

BioEssays

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Sexual selection drives the evolution of some of the most exaggerated traits in nature.Studies on sexual selection often focus on the size of these traits relative to body size, but few focus on energetic maintenance costs of the tissues that compose them, and the ways in which these costs vary with body size. The relationships between energy use and body size have consequences that may allow large individuals to invest disproportionally more in sexually selected structures, or lead to the reduced per-gram maintenance cost of enlarged structures. Although sexually selected traits can incur energetic maintenance costs, these costs are not universally high; they are dependent on the relative mass and metabolic activity of tissues associated with them. Energetic costs of maintenance may play a pervasive yet little-explored role in shaping the relative scaling of sexually selected traits across diverse taxa. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/JyuoQIeA33Q

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Cost of an elaborate trait: a trade-off between attracting females and maintaining a clean ornament

Cited by 9 publications

References 57 publications

Brains vs Brawn: Relative brain size is sexually dimorphic amongst weapon bearing ruminants

Brains vs Brawn: Relative brain size is sexually dimorphic amongst weapon bearing ruminants

Brood care behavior of the painted stork (Mycteria leucocephala) in Peninsular Malaysia

Positive allometry of sexually selected traits: Do metabolic maintenance costs play an important role?

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