Sexual Selection and the Risk of Extinction of Introduced Birds on Oceanic Islands

McLain, Denson Kelly; Moulton, Michael P.; Redfearn, Todd P.

doi:10.2307/3545671

Cited by 80 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Finally, Sorci et al (1998) found that dichromatic species (i.e. those with strong sexual selection on plumage colour; see Møller and Birkhead 1994) experienced reduced chances of establishing themselves in New Zealand when compared with monochromatic species, a result that is consistent with a previous finding by McLain et al (1995).…”

supporting

confidence: 80%

“…In birds, nesting habits (Newsome and Noble 1983), sexually selected traits (McLain et al 1995, Sorci et al 1998, migratory behaviour (Veltman et al 1996), clutch size (Green 1997) and body mass (Green 1997) have been linked to this difference. Here, we show that behavioural flexibility can also affect the fate of introduction attempts in the most thoroughly documented zone of the world, New Zealand: all else being equal, bird species with relatively large brains and a high frequency of foraging innovations in their area of origin tend to be more successful invaders than species with smaller forebrains and lower innovation frequencies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Behavioural flexibility predicts invasion success in birds introduced to New Zealand

Sol¹,

Lefebvre²

2000

Oikos

266

212

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A fundamental question in ecology is whether there are evolutionary characteristics of species that make some better than others at invading new communities. In birds, nesting habits, sexually selected traits, migration, clutch size and body mass have been suggested as important variables, but behavioural flexibility is another obvious trait that has received little attention. Behavioural flexibility allows animals to respond more rapidly to environmental changes and can therefore be advantageous when invading novel habitats. Behavioural flexibility is linked to relative brain size and, for foraging, has been operationalised as the number of innovations per taxon reported in the short note sections of ornithology journals. Here, we use data on avian species introduced to New Zealand and test the link between forebrain size, feeding innovation frequency and invasion success. Relative brain size was, as expected, a significant predictor of introduction success, after removing the effect of introduction effort. Species with relatively larger brains tended to be better invaders than species with smaller ones. Introduction effort, migratory strategy and mode of juvenile development were also significant in the models. Pair‐wise comparisons of closely related species indicate that successful invaders also showed a higher frequency of foraging innovations in their region of origin. This study provides the first evidence in vertebrates of a general set of traits, behavioural flexibility, that can potentially favour invasion success.

show abstract

supporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioural flexibility predicts invasion success in birds introduced to New Zealand

Sol¹,

Lefebvre²

2000

Oikos

266

212

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…McLain (1993) suggested that the evolutionary trend for increased body size in mammalian lineages and the associated extinction risk may arise as a consequence of sexual selection for larger male body size. Consistent with this suggestion, McLain et al (1995) found that sexually dichromatic species of birds introduced to Hawaii and Tahiti were less likely to be successful than monochromatic species. A separate study of birds introduced to New Zealand for which the size of the introduced population was known demonstrated that this increased risk of extinction of small populations was greater for dichromatic species even when the number of individuals introduced was controlled statistically (Sorci et al 1998).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

“…A separate study of birds introduced to New Zealand for which the size of the introduced population was known demonstrated that this increased risk of extinction of small populations was greater for dichromatic species even when the number of individuals introduced was controlled statistically (Sorci et al 1998). The mechanisms behind this greater probability of extinction are unknown, although a number of possibilities have been advanced (McLain et al 1995, Sorci et al 1998. Models of demographic stochasticity based on the New Zealand data set suggest that most of the variation in extinction risk could be accounted for by random factors due to small population size (Legendre et al 1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Allee effect, sexual selection and demographic stochasticity

Møller¹,

Legendre²

2001

Oikos

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Legendre, S. 2001. Allee effect, sexual selection and demographic stochasticity. -Oikos 92: 27 -34.The negative frequency-dependent effect of reproductive success in animals on population growth refers to a category of phenomena termed the Allee effect. The mechanistic basis for this effect and hence an understanding of its consequences has been obscure. We suggest that sexual selection, in particular female mate preferences, is a previously neglected component giving rise to the Allee effect. Lack of breeding and reduced reproductive success of females at low population densities are commonly described in situations where females have little or no opportunity to choose a mate, consistent with this suggestion. We developed a demographic model that incorporated the effects of lack of female choice on rates of reproduction. Using either a mating system with incompatibility or a system with a directional mate preference, we show that commonly encountered levels of reproductive suppression in the absence of suitable mates in a population, where sexual selection still operates, may increase the effects of demographic stochasticity considerably.

show abstract

“…At some stages of this process, such as when species start to use novel dietary compounds and tend to express them without modification, temporary gains of a pre-breeding moult might facilitate use of these fast-degrading compounds in plumage displays. In turn, gain of an additional moult affects a suite of life-history traits, including migratory schedule, and could ultimately produce the frequently documented ecological associations among plumage displays, migration and range expansion [34,39,[55][56][57][58][59][60].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of long-term coloration trends with biochemically unstable ingredients

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The evolutionarily persistent and widespread use of carotenoid pigments in animal coloration contrasts with their biochemical instability. Consequently, evolution of carotenoid-based displays should include mechanisms to accommodate or limit pigment degradation. In birds, this could involve two strategies: (i) evolution of a moult immediately prior to the mating season, enabling the use of particularly fast-degrading carotenoids and (ii) evolution of the ability to stabilize dietary carotenoids through metabolic modification or association with feather keratins. Here, we examine evolutionary lability and transitions between the two strategies across 126 species of birds. We report that species that express mostly unmodified, fast-degrading, carotenoids have pre-breeding moults, and a particularly short time between carotenoid deposition and the subsequent breeding season. Species that expressed mostly slow-degrading carotenoids in their plumage accomplished this through increased metabolic modification of dietary carotenoids, and the selective expression of these slow-degrading compounds. In these species, the timing of moult was not associated with carotenoid composition of plumage displays. Using repeated samples from individuals of one species, we found that metabolic modification of dietary carotenoids significantly slowed their degradation between moult and breeding season. Thus, the most complex and colourful ornamentation is likely the most biochemically stable in birds, and depends less on ecological factors, such as moult timing and migration tendency. We suggest that coevolution of metabolic modification, selective expression and biochemical stability of plumage carotenoids enables the use of unstable pigments in long-term evolutionary trends in plumage coloration.

show abstract

Sexual Selection and the Risk of Extinction of Introduced Birds on Oceanic Islands

Cited by 80 publications

References 23 publications

Behavioural flexibility predicts invasion success in birds introduced to New Zealand

Behavioural flexibility predicts invasion success in birds introduced to New Zealand

Allee effect, sexual selection and demographic stochasticity

Evolution of long-term coloration trends with biochemically unstable ingredients

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About