Influence of dominance and age on mate choice in black-billed magpies: an experimental study

Komers, Petr E.; Dhindsa, Manjit S.

doi:10.1016/0003-3472(89)90043-2

Cited by 31 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The show of status ultimately functions in sexual selection (Gwinner 1964;Komers and Dhindsa 1989). However, since the same display yields other advantages related to feeding and gaining access to food, it has likely become amplified rather than compromised through evolution.…”

Section: Adaptive Significance Of Yellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do common ravens yell because they want to attract others?

Heinrich

Marzluff

1991

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

117

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The formation of groups at food bonanzas results from a variety of mechanism, which include recruitment by signalling and information parasitism. Recruitment is distinguished from information parasitism on functional grounds: attraction of a crowd is termed recruitment if the signaler's fitness is enhanced by the attraction of others but termed parasitism if the signaler's fitness is reduced by the attraction of others. We here show, however, that in Common Ravens, Corvus corax, the proximate reasons for giving recruitment signals are probably other than for attracting a crowd. In the forests of the northeastern United States, non-breeding, vagrant ravens commonly aggregate in large numbers at carcasses where they neutralize the defense of territorial adults. We attempted to mimic this situation with a captive flock of juveniles and a pair of resident adults in order to determine the proximate factors triggering "yells", vocalizations which attract nearby ravens to large animal carcasses. Our experiments indicate that yells are given primarily by hungry birds. However, yelling is strongly modified by status. Within the vagrant crowd, status is labile. When successive dominants were removed, replacements immediately took their place. Furthermore, when the dominants were re-introduced to the flock they always suffered significant losses of status and ceased yelling. The territorial male has, and constantly maintains, the highest status within (but not necessarily outside) his territory, and here he rarely yells. In sharp contrast, within the vagrant crowd of unmated birds it is the highest-status birds that are the most likely to yell when approaching food. Furthermore, the dominant vagrants (as well as adults) suppress yelling in subordinates. We conclude that ravens yell proximately to advertise their status at food, and that recruitment is only one of several ultimate advantages of the behavior.

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Section: Adaptive Significance Of Yellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do common ravens yell because they want to attract others?

Heinrich

Marzluff

1991

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

117

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“…Theoretical considerations aside, there is much empirical evidence of female preference for older males both in the presence and absence of resources o¡ered in exchange for mating access (for examples of the former, see Burley 1981;Zuk 1987Zuk , 1988Partridge 1988;Simmons 1988Simmons , 1995Conner 1989;Komers & Dhindsa 1989;Simmons & Zuk 1992;Coª te¨& Hunte 1993;S×tre et al 1995;Wagner et al 1996; for the latter, see Weatherhead 1984;Sundberg & Dixon 1996;Widemo 1996). Far fewer studies have found evidence of female discrimination against older males (Burley & Moran 1979;Ritchie et al 1995), or no e¡ect of age on mating success (Alatalo et al 1986;Hill 1990;Petrie 1993;Olsson & Madsen 1995;Savalli & Fox 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive female choice for middle–aged mates in a lekking sandfly

Jones

Balmford

Quinnell

2000

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

110

107

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Most theoretical models of age-related mate choice predict that females should prefer older males because they have proven survival ability. An alternative view is that older males represent inferior mates because of negative genetic correlations between early and late ¢tness components, or because older males have traded o¡ longevity against other ¢tness components, have accumulated deleterious germ-line mutations, or are less well adapted to current conditions than more recently born individuals. While numerous studies have reported female choice for older males, few have explicitly examined the ¢tness consequences of such a preference. We present evidence from a lekking sand£y, Lutzomyia longipalpis, showing that choosy females discriminate against older males and gain a ¢tness bene¢t from their choice. When permitted free choice from an aggregation consisting of males aged zero to two days (young), four to six days (middle-aged) and eight to ten days (old), females preferentially mated with middle-aged males, but all measures of female reproductive success were independent of male age. In contrast, when a second set of females was randomly assigned single virgin males of known age, the eggs of those paired to old mates exhibited lower hatching success than the eggs of females mated to young or middle-aged males. These results suggest that females avoid mating with older males because they represent poorer quality mates. Age-related di¡erences in male quality may have a genetic basis, but could equally well arise through a phenotypic decline in sperm quality or sperm transfer ability with male age. The lack of evidence of female discrimination against older males from other studies may be because these did not explore the reproductive success of the full age range of males.

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“…Individually marked adult male and female magpies had been kept in the aviary since 1985, where many of them had paired, nested, and incubated a clutch of eggs (Komers and Boag 1988). Magpies, both adult and juvenile, were also captured during the autumn of 1987 at a number of different locations using circular funnel traps (Alsager et al 1972); their age and sex were determined using the criteria of Scharf (1985Scharf ( , 1987.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Black-billed Magpie Pica pica is both a monogamous and territorial species, both sexes of which contribute substantially to parental investment (Erpino 1968, Baeyens 1981a, b, Mugaas and King 1981, Komers and Boag 1988. Komers and Dhindsa (1989) have shown that females are discriminatory in choosing mates but males are not, and that females prefer adult over juvenile males and among adults, dominant over subordinate males.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%