Dawn song of the male great tit attracts other males rather than females

JUNE 23, 2020

by Wageningen University

Female great tits (Parus major) stay clear of territories with better singing males while competing males are attracted to the territories with better singers. This unexpected conclusion was reached by researchers of Wageningen University & Research in collaboration with the Netherlands Instituut for Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). This conclusion is diametrically opposed to the current assumption that male birds use their song to impress females and repel males to stay away from their territory.

Previous research showed that songbirds often cheat on their partners. One would thus expect male birds to use their song to lure any close-by females. But nature tells a different story, the research team discovered.

"Our knowledge to date on the daily behavior between males and females is largely based on knowledge under lab condition because it is so difficult to follow a songbird for a long time," professor Marc Naguib explains. "We know what colors are prefered by the females, and what songs they prefer if they exhibit an immediate reaction. But how they show territorial behavior and respond to males in the open field was hitherto almost unknown."

Dawn song attracts male competition

Ph.D. researcher Nina Bircher and her co-authors expected that the most enthusiastic singers would attract the most female interest. This appeared completely false. The male great tits with the most extensive repertoire that started singing the earliest and showed the most persistence attracted fewer females. Male great tits, however, entered their singing competitor's territory, captivated by the performance, the researchers write in the scientific journal Behavioral Ecology.

The reason for this behavior remains a mystery. Naguib: "Males may enter the competitor's territory to check out why the competitor is better than they are, or why he may be more suited to produce offspring." Whatever the reasons, the discovery sheds new light on the complexity of songbirds social and communication network.

The prevailing assumption that the female great tit would more frequently enter a different territory when she is fertile is thus not supported. The premise is she would visit other territories specifically for extra-pair mating. In reality, however, this research shows that she enters territories other than her own once she has laid eggs in an effort to find food for her young.

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Male sparrows are less intimidated by the songs of aging rivals

The same singing that marks a male as 'the guy to beat' at age two signals that he's 'obsolete' by age 10

Date: January 17, 2020

Source: Duke University

Few singers reach their sunset years with the same voice they had in younger days. Singing sparrows are no different. Duke University-led research reveals that elderly swamp sparrows don't sound quite like they used to -- nor do they strike the same fear in other males who may be listening in.

Humans are remarkably good at guessing a person's age just by hearing their voice. But this is the first time the phenomenon has been demonstrated in wild animals, said Duke biology professor and study co-author Steve Nowicki.

The findings were published on January 7 in the journal Behavioral Ecology.

During the early spring, a male swamp sparrow stakes out a breeding territory and threatens any male who dares to trespass on his turf. If a potential rival enters another male's territory and starts to sing, the resident male says "Get out!" by singing back with a rapid weet-weet-weet and flying toward the intruder. Eventually, if all else fails, he attacks.

Previous research by this team showed that male swamp sparrows reach their peak as vocalists at age two, and start to decline after that, singing less frequently and less consistently as they get older.

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'Gay' Penguin Couple Had No Egg of Their Own. So They Stole One.

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer 18 days ago Animals 

Zookeepers found the two males incubating a purloined egg.

A pair of mated male penguins in a Dutch zoo were so eager for offspring that they stole an egg from another pair of penguins.

Two male black-footed penguins (Spheniscus demersus, also known as African penguins) at DierenPark Amersfoort zoo in the Netherlands were recently found incubating a purloined egg. Their nest — holding the stolen egg — was near a nest that belonged to a male and female penguin couple, zoo representatives said in a statement.

Hatching season was already underway for the zoo's penguin community, and the males likely swiped the egg from their breeding neighbors during "an unguarded moment," according to the statement. 

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Female manakins use male mating call when implanted with male hormones

Date:  February 6, 2019

Source:  Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Among the first things that stand out about golden-collared manakins, a bird found in Panama and western Colombia, are the acrobatics of male adults during breeding season. Males also emit a particular call, the 'chee-poo', to attract females. In a new paper published in Animal Behaviour, Smithsonian researchers Ioana Chiver and Barney Schlinger explore the role of androgens -- male hormones -- in the expression of this vocal behavior, by administering testosterone to females and juvenile males.

In previous research by these scientists, testosterone implants motivated juvenile males to perform all the courtship acrobatics of male adults, while females performed some of them. Thanks to video recordings of these behaviors, she was able to extract the vocalizations made by female manakins and juvenile males that were administered testosterone. She then compared them to the vocalizations of untreated females, untreated juvenile males, as well as adult males in the wild.

When implanted with testosterone, female manakins were able to produce the male-specific 'chee-poo' vocalization, while untreated females were not. This may indicate that the neuromuscular systems associated with this mating call are present in the females or that they can be quickly developed in response to a male hormone, such as testosterone.

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Intelligent males may make female birds swoon: study

January 10, 2019 by Ivan Couronne

 A report that shows that female birds prefer smarter males aligns with one of Charles Darwin's old theories, which held that mate choice could contribute to the evolution of intelligence

Male birds are often the ones with the most vibrant feathers, or the most elaborate songs, but researchers said Thursday that what female birds could really appreciate is a male who shows his intelligence.

The report in the journal Science aligns with one of Charles Darwin's old theories, which held that mate choice could contribute to the evolution of intelligence.

"Our study demonstrates that direct observation of cognitive skills can affect mate preference," said the study, authored by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and at Leiden University in The Netherlands.

Researchers used 34 small Australian parrots, known as budgerigars, to test the notion that a suitor's smarts could outweigh style or songs.

A female bird was exposed to two similar looking males, in a cage in which she could only interact with one at a time. Prior study designs like this have shown that females tend to lean toward males with slightly nicer appearances, or more appealing songs.

Researchers could tell which male was preferred by the amount of time the female spent interacting with him.

Then, they swept away the lesser male to engage him in a special training session in opening a container filled with seeds.

The female—and her preferred male—received no such training, and were given open boxes of seed to eat from freely.

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Why the number of single male Magellanic penguins is rising at this breeding colony

Date:  January 3, 2019

Source:  University of Washington

The number of single male Magellanic penguins is rising at this breeding colony. Here's why.

Like most of their stout-bodied, flippered kin, Magellanic penguins spend much of their lives in the ocean. From late autumn through winter and into spring in the Southern Hemisphere, these South American penguins swim off the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay and northern Argentina in search of anchovies, sardines and squid.

But as spring turns to summer, they swim thousands of miles south and congregate in big coastal colonies. There, males and females pair off, breed and attempt to rear one or two newly hatched chicks. One of the largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins is at Punta Tombo in Argentina, where University of Washington biology professor P. Dee Boersma and her team at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels have studied the penguins since 1982. They have documented a population decline at Punta Tombo of more than 40 percent since 1987, along with a rising male-to-female ratio, and have spent years trying to pinpoint its cause.

In a paper published Jan. 2 in the journal Ecological Applications, Boersma and UW postdoctoral researcher Natasha Gownaris report that juvenile females are more likely to die at sea, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three males to every female, as well as population decline. Their study incorporated more than 30 years of population data collected by UW researchers -- including banding and studying individual penguins -- into models of population dynamics. Boersma and Gownaris' models show that juveniles have much lower survival rates than adults in all years, a common phenomenon in seabirds. In addition, among both juveniles and adults, females are less likely to survive than males, but this sex bias is much larger among juveniles. Adult females seem to fare worst in years when overall survival is low, suggesting they are more vulnerable than males to disruptions in the food supply during the nonbreeding season.

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Dive-bombing for love: Male hummingbirds dazzle females with a highly synchronized display

Date:  December 18, 2018

Source:  Princeton University

When it comes to flirting, animals know how to put on a show. In the bird world, males often go to great lengths to attract female attention, like peacocks shaking their tail feathers and manakins performing complex dance moves. These behaviors often stimulate multiple senses, making them hard for biologists to quantify.

Hummingbirds are no exception when it comes to snazzy performances, as males of many species perform spectacular courtship dives. Broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) fly up to 100 feet in the air before sweeping down toward a perched female, then climb back up for a subsequent dive in the opposite direction. At the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado, home to a population of breeding broad-tailed hummingbirds, researchers from Princeton University have been investigating how hummingbirds combine speed, sound and color in their displays. Their work appears in the Dec. 18 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

"The dives are truly amazing feats for such small birds," said Benedict Hogan, a postdoctoral research associate in ecology and evolutionary biology and the study's lead author. "We know from previous work that the males can reach really high speeds. They combine that speed with intriguing noises generated by their wing and tail feathers, and of course with their brightly iridescent plumage." But how do these different components fit together, and what might a dive sound like and look like to a female?

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Among birds-of-paradise, good looks are not enough to win a mate

Date:  November 20, 2018

Source:  Cornell University

Male birds-of-paradise are justly world famous for their wildly extravagant feather ornaments, complex calls, and shape-shifting dance moves -- all evolved to attract a mate. New research published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology suggests for the first time that female preferences drive the evolution of physical and behavioral trait combinations that may also be tied to where the male does his courting: on the ground or up in the trees. There are 40 known species of birds-of-paradise, most found in New Guinea and northern Australia.

Study lead author Russell Ligon, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, suggests females are evaluating not only how great the male looks but, simultaneously, how well he sings and dances. Female preferences for certain combinations of traits result in what the researchers call a "courtship phenotype" -- bundled traits determined by both genetics and environment.

Study authors examined 961 video clips and 176 audio clips in the Cornell Lab's Macaulay Library archive as well as 393 museum specimens from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. They conclude that certain behaviors and traits are correlated:

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Pupil's brain recognizes the perfect teacher

Social brain lights up in juvenile songbirds that find a singing mentor

Date:  October 17, 2018

Source:  Duke University

Youngsters learn many important behaviors by imitating adults. But young learners are selective in who they copy, and scientists don't understand how they choose the right teacher.

Young male zebra finches must learn to copy the song of an adult tutor in order to ultimately attract a mate. Researchers already knew that juveniles don't copy songs played through a loudspeaker or sung by other species of birds. Now, findings from Duke University scientists show how the juvenile birds identify the right teacher.

The study, which appears early online Oct. 17 in the journal Nature, reveals that being near a singing tutor activates connections between a social area of the young bird's brain and the part of the brain responsible for the juvenile's ability to sing. If those connections aren't activated, a young finch fails to copy the tutor's song.

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Bold male birds fall faster and harder for their partners

Date:  October 1, 2018

Source:  University of Oxford

Research from Oxford University has revealed that bold male birds focus on forming strong relationships with their future breeding partners while shy male birds play the field.

A new study from the Department of Zoology, Oxford University, has found that the individual personalities of male great tits influences how they bond with their future breeding partner.

The bolder, more proactive, males choose their future partners sooner, as well as putting more effort into their relationship before the breeding season begins. Shy males are less devoted to forming a strong pair bond, and instead spend more of their time flocking with other females.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, demonstrate how individual differences in behaviour can shape the formation of crucial social relationships in the wild.

Dr Josh Firth, who led the research, said: "Finding a mating partner is of upmost importance to these birds, just as it is for many species across the animal kingdom. We wanted to ask why individuals of the same species differ so much in how much effort they put into forming these relationships."

The research, which was carried out at Oxford University's Wytham Woods, assessed the personalities of hundreds of individual wild great tits, and then used radio-frequency identification tags to track the birds' social networks over multiple years.

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The power of purple – male birds use gaudy colours to warn and defeat rivals

Male Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens use their purple crowns to show off about their social status and strength, according to a new study by Monash biologists published in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Some male birds seasonally produce a brightly coloured nuptial plumage to attract females at the start of the breeding season.

Researchers studying the male Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens say that despite being faithful to their partners, these birds take the trouble every year to change their head colour from dull brown to a stunning combination of purple and black plumage.

The question is why.

“These showy males actually use their purple crowns to signal social status and competitive strength to other males,” said study author Associate Professor Anne Peters, from the Monash School of Biological Sciences.

The study’s lead author, PhD student Marie Fan, supervised by Associate Professor Peters, studied the role of the nuptial plumage in competitive interactions among male Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens.

“They strongly resemble other fairy-wrens, that all develop seasonal attractive plumages,” said Marie.

“However, other fairy-wrens show extreme levels of sexual infidelity and use their seasonal plumages to attract extra-pair mates.”

“Because Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens practice monogamy, they represent a useful study species for understanding how different evolutionary processes may lead to apparently similar seasonal plumages.”

Purple-crowned Fairy-wrens form family-like groups living in well-defined territories, each owned by a dominant breeding pair accompanied by subordinate helpers. Acquiring and defending a dominant breeder position is therefore critical for male reproductive success.

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Male peacocks can make females’ heads vibrate at a distance

18 June 2018

By Chris Baraniuk

Many of us feel a buzz when approached by a charming and attractive stranger, but not in such a literal sense. When a peacock rattles his opulent train feathers at a female of the species, it makes a sound at a specific frequency – causing the crest on her head to vibrate energetically.

Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) are famous for the spectacular train of feathers worn by males. The feathers are brightly coloured and have iridescent “eyespots”. Males display them to attract females.

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Why do older male birds father more 'illegitimate' chicks?

Date:  May 31, 2018

Source:  Imperial College London

When female birds have chicks as the result of an extra-marital fling, the fathers are almost always older males, and scientists are finding out why.

Many birds, particularly songbirds like sparrows, form social pair bonds. They usually stick with one partner for life to raise chicks, but may have affairs that result in 'illegitimate' children. From previous studies, it is known that older males are more likely to sire illegitimate children, but exactly why has remained a mystery.

Now, a team of researchers led by Imperial College London have studied the behaviour of a captive population of sparrows at the Silwood Park campus to find out why older males are so successful. Their results are published this week in the current issue of Scientific Reports.

They tested two possibilities: that older males are better at coercing females into extra-pair affairs (the 'male manipulation' hypothesis), or that females solicit more sex from older males than from younger males (the 'female choice' hypothesis).

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White cheeks are more titillating

New bird study shows that the health and attractiveness of male blue tits is linked to the whiteness of their cheek feathers

Date:  February 6, 2018

Source:  Springer

Summary:

Male blue tits with white cheeks are healthier and more likely to mate with higher quality partners than their counterparts with duller cheek feathers. Having purer white cheeks also indicates that a blue tit was better able to overcome an infection with parasites during the previous year.

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The trouble with being a handsome bird

Date: June 28, 2017

Source: Monash University

 

Male birds often use brightly colored plumage to be attractive to females. However, such eye-catching trimmings may also attract unwanted attention from predators. Now, a new study has found that showy males indeed perceive themselves to be at a greater risk of predation.

The study's lead author, PhD student Alex McQueen, from the School of Biological Sciences, studied risk-taking behaviour in Australia's favourite bird, the superb fairy wren, also known as the blue wren. Every year, male wrens change their color from dull brown to a stunning combination of brilliant azure blue, with contrasting dark-blue and black plumage.

This annual color change makes them a useful study species for measuring the risk of being brightly colored, as the behaviour of the same individual bird can be compared while he is in different colors.

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Male birds adjust courtship behavior based on social context

Date: May 17, 2017

Source: American Ornithological Society Publications Office

Male birds that have already paired up with a female aren't above looking for a little action on the side. A new study from The Auk: Ornithological Advances explores how male juncos adjust their courtship behavior to their social landscape, finding that while both paired and unpaired males will try to get the attention of a new female on their turf, they go about it in different ways.

A male bird's courtship behavior can be affected by factors like his size and hormone levels, but ornithologists are increasingly realizing that social context -- whether or not the male already has a mate, and what other birds are around to witness his exploits -- also plays a role. Dustin Reichard of Ohio Wesleyan University (formerly Indiana University) and his colleagues set out to tease apart the roles these different issues play in the courtship of Dark-eyed Juncos, comparing how unpaired males, paired males whose mates were present, and paired males whose mates were elsewhere behaved when presented with a new female.

They found that paired males approached females more rapidly, spent more time close to the females, were more active, and spent more time with their body feathers erect than unpaired males. Paired males also sang fewer long-range songs than their single counterparts, perhaps not wanting other birds to overhear, although the actual presence or absence of their mates didn't affect their behavior.

Reichard had noticed variation in male juncos' behavior during previous work to record their courtship songs, which led him to start developing hypotheses about what might underlie those differences. "Our results highlight the importance of considering both intrinsic and extrinsic factors when investigating the causes of variation in male courtship behavior," says Reichard. "The focus of the field has generally been intrinsic factors, such as male condition or circulating hormone levels, but our results suggest a potential role for eavesdroppers and social context in addition to condition-dependent factors."

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Birds choose their neighbors based on personality

Date: May 7, 2017

Source: University of Oxford

Birds of a feather nest together, according to a new study which has found that male great tits (Parus major) choose neighbours with similar personalities to their own.

Oxford University researchers investigated whether the personality of birds influences their social lives -- in particular who they choose to nest near. The study involved analysing social network structure in a population of wild great tits at Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, over six consecutive breeding seasons.

Lead author and doctoral student Katerina Johnson explained: 'We found that males, but not females, were picky about personalities, with males opting for like-minded neighbours. Our results emphasise that social interactions may play a key role in animal decisions.'

This tendency for males to associate with other males of similar personality may be particularly important during the breeding season when aggression peaks. Males fiercely defend their territories and compete for opportunities to mate with females and so shyer males may avoid setting up home near bolder, more aggressive individuals. Females, however, likely choose where to nest based on the attractive qualities of males.

The results also showed that this personality assortment amongst males was not affected by local environmental conditions. 'Just like students choosing their flatmates," Katerina commented, 'birds may pay more attention to who they share their living space with than simply location." She added: "Animal personalities can influence their social organisation and humans are likewise known to form social networks based on shared attributes including personality.'

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