Journal
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY
Volume 22, Issue 4, Pages 846-853Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arr065
Keywords
communication; display strategy; elicitation behavior; female choice; proceptive behavior; sexual selection
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [NSF IBN 9816564]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Sexual selection is responsible for the evolution of costly elaborate male traits. When male displays are dynamic, display strategy is sensitive to contextual cues that alter the relative costs and benefits of producing each signal in a male's repertoire. Because females often prefer more elaborate signals, males often respond to female presence by elaborating their display. When added elaboration increases assessment information or reproductive stimulation, females might benefit by extracting the maximum amount of signal elaboration from males. Thus, we expect that females could exaggerate their presence and cause males to produce even costlier and more attractive signals by exhibiting elicitation behaviors. We asked whether female tungara frogs elicit increased call complexity from prospective mates. In tungara frogs, adding complexity increases both attractiveness and predation risk. We found that females exhibit a repertoire of movements that function not in mate acquisition, per se, but in display manipulation, by eliciting increased complexity from calling males. The probability that males add complexity to their display increases when females produce these movements. Thus, females actively influence males to produce riskier signals.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available