Honest advertisement of pairing status: evidence from a tropical resident wood-warbler

Staicer, Cynthia A.

doi:10.1006/anbe.1996.0036

Cited by 37 publications

(27 citation statements)

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“…Time constraints precluded us from observing more than one area per day. Australian reed warblers sing throughout the day and occasionally at night, but they have two diurnal peaks of song activity at morning and at evening, like most song birds (Møller 1991a, Staicer 1996). Singing during dusk is most likely to be affected by previous foraging success (Thomas 1999).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Singing as a handicap: the effects of food availability and weather on song output in the Australian reed warbler Acrocephalus australis

Berg

Beintema²,

Welbergen³

et al. 2005

Journal of Avian Biology

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Bird song is generally regarded as a sexually selected trait, and may represent a reliable handicap signal under at least certain conditions. Females may use the degree of male song production as a reliable cue to male condition or territory quality. We investigated the effect of supplementary feeding on song output in the migratory Australian reed warbler Acrocephalus australis. We experimentally increased the food availability on alternate days, and recorded several weather variables. We measured song rate and song length independently. Supplementary fed birds sang more on feeding days than on non‐feeding days, while control birds did not show this effect. Song output was not significantly associated with any of the weather variables examined. Our results indicate that singing has the potential to serve as a reliable handicap signal to territorial food availability irrespective of the prevailing weather conditions. We discuss the role of energetic constraints and behavioural flexibility on the signaling function of song.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Singing as a handicap: the effects of food availability and weather on song output in the Australian reed warbler Acrocephalus australis

Berg

Beintema²,

Welbergen³

et al. 2005

Journal of Avian Biology

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“…In species in which males use several song patterns, specific patterns may be particularly important to attract females. These patterns may be produced less frequently or even be abandoned after pairing, while the output of other song patterns continues until later stages of the breeding cycle (Hasselquist & Bensch 1991;Nemeth 1996;Staicer 1996). Song sung at different times of the day may also serve different functions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Nocturnal and diurnal singing activity in the nightingale: correlations with mating status and breeding cycle

2002

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“…In a bird population, individual pairs usually do not breed in perfect synchrony (Gil et al 1999), and the dates of the stages of the breeding cycle may vary from male to male. Because the daily signaling routines of birds usually depend on the stages of the breeding cycle (Nemeth 1996;Staicer 1996;Amrhein et al 2002Amrhein et al , 2004, it is likely that different males follow different daily signaling routines at a given time. However, if different males follow different daily signaling routines, the proportion of singing individuals (i.e., the population-wide singing activity) is influenced by the proportion of individuals using the particular signaling routines.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Abruptly changing responses may occur in space; for instance, along an environmental gradient, the population size of a species may abruptly decrease when a threshold of available habitat is reached (Swift and Hannon 2010). Likewise, abrupt responses may occur in time; for instance, an individual advertising to attract a mate may instantly change its behavior after pair formation (Krebs et al 1981, Nemeth 1996, Staicer 1996, Amrhein et al 2002. The exact time or threshold when such abrupt changes in responses take place are usually called "change-points" (Thomson et al 2010).…”

Section: Study Site and Field Protocol-data Collection Took Place Frmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexually selected signaling in birds: A case for Bayesian change-point analysis of behavioral routines

Roth

Sprau

Naguib

et al. 2012

The Auk

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Responses of organisms to environments or to conspecifics may abruptly change once the organism has changed its state. For example, the expression of sexually selected signals often depends on the pairing status of the sender. A likely change in signaling routines at the point of pair formation should thus be taken into account when investigating a sexually selected trait like birdsong. However, female breeding behavior is elusive in many species, and the date of pair formation may be unknown. We developed a change-point model in a Bayesian context to analyze the seasonally changing singing activity in male Nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos) for which the pairing status was assumed to be unknown. We used our change-point singing activity model to estimate the pairing status of the males as well as the dates of pair formation (i.e., the unobserved switches of states). We obtained results on pairing success and date of pair formation that were consistent with our data from mist netting and with the results of earlier studies. We also found that the peak in nocturnal and dawn singing activity was after the period of female arrival and was later in the season in unpaired males than in paired males. On the basis of our analyses, we argue that change-point models are powerful analytical tools for many fields of research and can be used whenever animals abruptly switch behavioral routines.

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Honest advertisement of pairing status: evidence from a tropical resident wood-warbler

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

Singing as a handicap: the effects of food availability and weather on song output in the Australian reed warbler Acrocephalus australis

Singing as a handicap: the effects of food availability and weather on song output in the Australian reed warbler Acrocephalus australis

Nocturnal and diurnal singing activity in the nightingale: correlations with mating status and breeding cycle

Sexually selected signaling in birds: A case for Bayesian change-point analysis of behavioral routines

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