Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 102, Issue 18, Pages 6391-6394Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0409228102
Keywords
plumage reflectance; predation; sexual selection; UV vision
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Sexual selection often favors brighter and exaggerated traits, which also increase the risk of detection by predators. Signals that are preferentially conspicuous to conspecifics would reduce the predation cost of signaling and, therefore, might facilitate the evolution of stronger sexual and social signals. This selective signaling is possible if predators and prey have differently tuned sensory systems. By using a retinal model to compare reflectance from the plumages of Swedish songbirds to the reflectance of their natural backgrounds, we found their color badges to be significantly more conspicuous to other songbirds (which have a UV-tuned visual system) than to raptors and corvids (which have a violet-tuned system) in both coniferous and deciduous forests, consistent with an adaptive private communication system.
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