Sperm competition and sexual selection: a meta-analysis of paternity studies of birds

Møller, Anders Pape; Ninni, Paola

doi:10.1007/s002650050501

Cited by 253 publications

(218 citation statements)

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“…Møller (1987) showed that female extrapair copulation decreased with increasing male mate guarding, which can be regarded as female preference for males who have high fertilization ability. Likewise, males that prevent other males from settling nearby suffer less paternity loss (e.g., Møller and Ninni 1998;Hasegawa et al 2010b; but see Saino et al 1999) and thus this might also be female preference for indirect parental care (Table 1).…”

Section: Resources Defended or Provided By Malesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Females would rather obtain indirect benefits (i.e., genes for attractiveness and viability) by preferring well-ornamented males (Møller 1994a; also see Møller and Jennions 2001 for unpublished data on song in relation to direct benefits). Still, even in this model species of female mate choice, direct evidence of female mate choice is scarce (but see Møller 1988 for female extra-pair copulation behavior), and most of them rely on indirect evidence such as mating pattern or extra-pair paternity, both of which can be affected by male-male contests, male strategy, or ecological factors such as inter-nest distance, which cannot easily be teased apart by experimental manipulation (e.g., Hasegawa et al 2010b;Lifjeld et al 2011;reviewed in Westneat and Stewart 2003;also see Møller 1991b;Møller and Ninni 1998;Saino et al 1999 for relationship between inter-nest distance and extrapair copulation or paternity). Thus, these observations and even experiments should be interpreted carefully, though careful interpretation is required for other works as well (e.g., for those with small sample size; see below).…”

Section: Secondary Sexual Characteristicsmentioning

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: Resources Defended or Provided By Malesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Secondary Sexual Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Hasegawa

2017

Ecological Research

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“…EPP reflects variance in male mating success (Møller & Ninni 1998), and has been shown to affect the strength of sexual selection intraspecifically (Sheldon & Ellegren 1999). Relative testes size and sexual dichromatism are both known to be interspecifically positively correlated with rates of EPP (Møller & Birkhead 1994;Møller & Briskie 1995;Owens & Hartley 1998) as well as with each other (Dunn et al 2001), and are predictors of other sexually selected phenomena, such as sexual size dimorphism and social mating system (Dunn et al 2001;Pitcher et al 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual selection predicts advancement of avian spring migration in response to climate change

2006

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Global warming has led to earlier spring arrival of migratory birds, but the extent of this advancement varies greatly among species, and it remains uncertain to what degree these changes are phenotypically plastic responses or microevolutionary adaptations to changing environmental conditions. We suggest that sexual selection could help to understand this variation, since early spring arrival of males is favoured by female choice. Climate change could weaken the strength of natural selection opposing sexual selection for early migration, which would predict greatest advancement in species with stronger female choice. We test this hypothesis comparatively by investigating the degree of long-term change in spring passage at two ringing stations in northern Europe in relation to a synthetic estimate of the strength of female choice, composed of degree of extra-pair paternity, relative testes size and degree of sexually dichromatic plumage colouration. We found that species with a stronger index of sexual selection have indeed advanced their date of spring passage to a greater extent. This relationship was stronger for the changes in the median passage date of the whole population than for changes in the timing of first-arriving individuals, suggesting that selection has not only acted on protandrous males. These results suggest that sexual selection may have an impact on the responses of organisms to climate change, and knowledge of a species' mating system might help to inform attempts at predicting these.

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“…Meta-analysis is a quantitative approach to summarize a body of research by examining the magnitude and the generality of a predicted pattern, while taking sample sizes into account. It also provides a way to investigate the heterogeneity among studies, and to identify modulatory variables that may account for such heterogeneity (Hedges & Olkin 1985;Rosenthal 1991;Møller & Ninni 1998;Roberts et al 2004). We analysed the existing literature on male androgen patterns in response to sexual and paternal behaviour across all vertebrates.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social modulation of androgens in male vertebrates: meta-analyses of the challenge hypothesis

Hirschenhauser¹,

Oliveira²

2006

Animal Behaviour

376

227

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The challenge hypothesis (Wingfield et al. 1990, American Naturalist, 136, 829-846) predicts varying androgen responses to mating, breeding or territorial behaviour in avian males. At the interspecific level, the highest androgen responsiveness has been observed in males from monogamous species with paternal incubation, and the lowest in males from promiscuous, nonpaternal species. Studies of a number of vertebrate species have discussed the extension of the challenge hypothesis predictions to nonavian vertebrates, but a general 'vertebrate consensus' has not been achieved. For this quantitative review we included data from all vertebrate species available in the literature into several meta-analyses. We distinguished between the effects of androgens on sexual, aggressive and paternal behaviour and the effects of behaviour on androgen levels and compared these effects between taxa, mating systems and types of parental care. We observed large variations between taxa in all data sets. Nevertheless, at the vertebrate level the challenge hypothesis predictions originating from the avian literature were confirmed for the modulation of androgen responsiveness (1) to sexual behaviour by paternal care but not by mating system, and (2) to paternal behaviour by mating system but not the degree of paternal care. In contrast, our results provide (3) no support for the predicted modulation of androgen levels in response to agonistic interactions by mating and parental care system at the vertebrate level. Furthermore, our meta-analyses suggest that the effects of exogenous testosterone on sexual and agonistic behaviour, as a rule of thumb, may be expected to be larger in nonpaternal than in paternal systems.

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Sperm competition and sexual selection: a meta-analysis of paternity studies of birds

Cited by 253 publications

References 99 publications

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

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

Sexual selection predicts advancement of avian spring migration in response to climate change

Social modulation of androgens in male vertebrates: meta-analyses of the challenge hypothesis

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