Mating Advantage of Multiple Male Ornaments in the Barn Swallow<i>Hirundo Rustica Gutturalis</i>

Hasegawa, Masaru; Arai, Emi; Watanabe, Mamoru; Nakamura, Masahiko

doi:10.2326/osj.9.141

Cited by 49 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…Then, I present how consideration (or ignorance) of inconspicuous male traits affects our understanding of evolution of overall male phenotype with a simple hypothetical scenario. Interrelationships among male traits Several studies have demonstrated positive intercorrelations among male secondary sexual characteristics in barn swallows (e.g., Møller et al 1998a;Saino et al 2003;Hasegawa et al 2010a; but see Vortman et al 2011;Safran et al 2016 for no detectable relationships). Still, it is often unclear whether these patterns reflect evolutionary covariation without a well-designed experiment (e.g., Wagner et al 2012;van Noordwijk and de Jong 1986;Stearns 1992;Andersson et al 2002;Saino et al 2003), due to individual variation in resource availability (e.g., when the allocation between the traits varies less than the total investment, a positive correlation can be predicted even if there is a trade-off between two ornaments).…”

Section: Importance Of Inconspicuous Male Traits On Overall Phenotypementioning

confidence: 99%

“…By contrast, in colonial populations in which nest predation is virtually absent, choosing attractive mates produces high-quality offspring. Such benefits of choosing attractive males should increase with female preference for the trait through a runaway process, particularly in dense colonial populations due to the high frequency of extra-pair young (> 15% of nestlings: reviewed in Table 5.1 in Turner 2006; see Hasegawa et al 2010a for sparse populations where extra-pair paternity is virtually absent: < 3%), which boosts sexual selection (e.g., eightfold compared to no extra-pair paternity: Kleven et al 2006). At the same time, because courtship display at breeding sites is not necessary for extrapair paternity (e.g., Hasegawa et al 2016a; also see Turner 2006), total female preference (and selection) for the traits displayed during courtship (e.g., territory, enticement calls; see Fig.…”

Section: Interrelationship Among Female Mate Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beauty alone is insufficient: female mate choice in the barn swallow

Hasegawa

2017

Ecological Research

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The barn swallow, Hirundo rustica, is a model species for studying sexual selection, particularly female mate choice. Although there have already been several reviews of female mate choice and its geographic variation in this species, all of them have focused on secondary sexual characteristics. Here, for better understanding of the general pattern of female mate choice and their influence on male phenotype, I review all of the female mate choice criteria ever reported in the barn swallow, emphasizing the importance of relatively inconspicuous male traits. These include resources defended or provided by males, such as territory and paternal investment. In addition, females prefer a nestling-like vocalization, enticement call, which is particularly noteworthy because females prefer immature calls. This pattern contrasts with female choice based on secondary sexual characteristics, in which more mature, elaborate male traits are almost always favored. Nestling-like male traits are widespread, and thus female avoidance of, rather than preference for, mature forms might be common. In addition to selection on the target trait itself, these resources and nestling-like male traits would also matter in understanding the evolution of the overall male phenotype and its geographic variation, due to the interrelationships among male target traits and those among female mate preferences. Female preferences for inconspicuous traits are highly dependent on ecological factors such as nest predation pressure, and thus overall male phenotype including secondary sexual characteristics might be more predictable than previously thought. Future studies should focus on not only conspicuous secondary sexual characteristics but inconspicuous male traits.

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Section: Importance Of Inconspicuous Male Traits On Overall Phenotypementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Interrelationship Among Female Mate Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beauty alone is insufficient: female mate choice in the barn swallow

Hasegawa

2017

Ecological Research

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“…We used skin specimens that were collected during the breeding season (i.e., from April to August; Hasegawa et al 2010;reviewed in Turner 2006) to exclude migrating or wintering swallows. In total, we examined 65 skins of adult barn swallows from six museums.…”

Section: Study Specimensmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because of the difficulty in measuring from the skin specimens, we used indices that were somewhat different from those used for live birds (see Hasegawa et al 2010). The tail fork depth was used instead of the tail length for the easiness and preciseness of measurements, as the tail fork depth of males also increases from south to north at least in Europe (Møller 1995;Møller et al 1995;Barbosa and Møller 1999;reviewed in Turner 2006, p. 24).…”

Section: Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Asian subspecies, H. r. gutturalis, which have short tail streamers (Turner 2006;Hasegawa et al 2010), sexual selection for tail streamers is not strong (e.g., Kojima et al 2009;Hasegawa et al 2010). Instead, previous studies have shown that the white tail spot and red throat patch are the two important sexually selected traits (Hasegawa et al 2010(Hasegawa et al , 2012reviewed in Hasegawa 2011). Thus, if there are any geographic variations in male ornamentation, these two male ornaments would have geographic variations in this subspecies rather than tail streamers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Divergent tail and throat ornamentation in the barn swallow across the Japanese islands

Hasegawa¹,

Arai

2012

J Ethol

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The geographic variations in male ornamentation provide insights into how different populations reach a different mean trait value under opposing forces of natural and sexual selection. Although the latitudinal cline of the elongated tail streamer, a sexually selected trait in the European subspecies of the barn swallow Hirundo rustica rustica, is a classic example, it has recently been shown that other subspecies of swallows have different targets of sexual selection. Here, we studied the latitudinal cline of ornamentation in the Asian subspecies, H. r. gutturalis, in which not the tail length but the white tail spot and red throat patch are important sexually selected traits. After controlling for covariates, the size of the white tail spot increased with latitude, while the size of the red throat patch decreased with latitude. On the other hand, we could not find any clear pattern regarding the elongated tail streamer, measured as fork depth. The divergent ornamentation across populations could be explained by latitudinal clines of sexually selected advantages of each ornament.

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Occurrence and persistence of pseudo‐tail spots in the barn swallow

Hasegawa

2024

Ecology and Evolution

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While numerous studies have confirmed sexual selection for ornamental traits in animals, it remains unclear about how animals exaggerate ornamentation across traits. I found that some Asian barn swallows Hirundo rustica gutturalis possessed “pseudo‐tail spots” on their undertail coverts adjacent to a well‐known sexual signal, the white tail spots. A close inspection showed their remarkable resemblance, and, as a consequence, pseudo‐tail spots appear to add white spots to the uniformly black central tail feathers, increasing the total number and area of white spots when spread tails are viewed from below. Pseudo‐tail spots on the undertail covers do not incur any flight cost, unlike the white tail spots on the tail itself, and thus presence of pseudo‐tail spots can represent an initial stage of a deceptive elaboration as predicted by sexual selection theory (i.e., males can elaborate traits with no additional flight cost, uncoupling flight cost and trait expression). The frequency of pseudo‐tail spots in the study population remained low even a decade after the first observation (ca. 7%), but was higher compared to other populations (e.g., 1% in another Japanese population). The slow progress of evolution, perhaps due to the low detectability of the trait, provides a unique opportunity to observe contemporary evolution of ornament exaggeration across traits. Further research with wider spatial and temporal coverage is needed to better understand the evolutionary and ecological importance of the trait.

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Mating Advantage of Multiple Male Ornaments in the Barn SwallowHirundo Rustica Gutturalis

Cited by 49 publications

References 40 publications

Beauty alone is insufficient: female mate choice in the barn swallow

Beauty alone is insufficient: female mate choice in the barn swallow

Divergent tail and throat ornamentation in the barn swallow across the Japanese islands

Occurrence and persistence of pseudo‐tail spots in the barn swallow

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