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Visual effects in great bowerbird sexual displays and their implications for signal design

journal contribution
posted on 2014-04-09, 00:00 authored by John EndlerJohn Endler, Julie Gaburro, Laura Kelley
It is often assumed that the primary purpose of a male's sexual display is to provide information about quality, or to strongly stimulate prospective mates, but other functions of courtship displays have been relatively neglected. Male great bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus nuchalis) construct bowers that exploit the female's predictable field of view(FOV) during courtship displays by creating forced perspective illusions, and the quality of illusion is a good predictor of mating success. Here,we present and discuss two additional components of male courtship displays that use the female's predetermined viewpoint: (i) the rapid and diverse flashing of coloured objects within her FOV and (ii) chromatic adaptation of the female's eyes that alters her perception of the colour of the displayed objects. Neither is directly related to mating success, but both are likely to increase signal efficacy, and may also be associated with attracting and holding the female's attention. Signal efficacy is constrained by trade-offs between the signal components; there are both positive and negative interactions within multicomponent signals. Important signal components may have a threshold effect on fitness rather than the often assumed linear relationship. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

History

Journal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volume

281

Issue

1783

ISSN

0962-8452

eISSN

1471-2954

Publication classification

C Journal article; C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2014, Royal Society Publishing