Badge, Body and Testes Size in House Sparrows Passer domesticus

Møller, Anders Pape; Erritzøe, Johannes

doi:10.2307/3676532

Cited by 43 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A positive correlation has been found between testes volume (an indirect measure of T concentrations) and badge size [Møller and Erritzoe, 1988]. Direct manipulations and measurements of T concentrations have confirmed that development of badge size is influenced by T concentrations [Evans et al, 2000;Buchanan et al, 2001;Gonzalez et al, 2001].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Social Status Interacts with Badge Size and Neuroendocrine Physiology to Influence Sexual Behavior in Male House Sparrows <i>(Passer domesticus)</i>

Riters¹,

Teague²,

Schroeder³

2004

Brain Behav Evol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Reproduction results from a complex interplay among multiple factors including social stimuli, hormones, the brain, and an individual’s physical characteristics. Male house sparrows (Passer domesticus) possess a bib of black feathers, or badge, that is associated with behaviors important for reproduction including courtship behaviors, copulation, and aggression. Such behaviors are controlled by testosterone activity within the central nervous system and are strongly influenced by social status and female behavior. To understand how multiple factors interact to coordinate reproductive activity we explored relationships among social status, badge size, gonad volume, and the volumes of brain regions involved in male courtship and dominance (HVC, robust nucleus of the archistriatum, and the medial preoptic nucleus). A trend toward a U-shaped relationship was observed between dominance status and badge size, with the most dominant and most subordinate males possessing the largest badges. Male vocal expression, copulation, and aggression were positively related to dominance status, but not badge size. In contrast, the volumes of HVC, the medial preoptic nucleus and the gonads related positively to badge size, but not dominance. Females preferentially approached large-badged males regardless of dominance status, but this interest translated into copulation for dominant rather than subordinate males, a finding possibly related to the observation that dominant males vocalized at higher rates than subordinates. Subordinate males that had large badges, attracted female interest, and possessed the neuroendocrine potential to perform courtship behaviors might have been prevented from doing so through social interactions with dominant males within the flock.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Social Status Interacts with Badge Size and Neuroendocrine Physiology to Influence Sexual Behavior in Male House Sparrows <i>(Passer domesticus)</i>

Riters¹,

Teague²,

Schroeder³

2004

Brain Behav Evol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…First, plumage characters should be correlated signi¢cantly with indices of quality, such as phenotypic condition, size, testes volume and age (Kodric-Brown & Brown 1984;MÖller & ErritzÖe 1988;Andersson 1992;Hill 1992;Jones & Montgomerie 1992;Andersson 1994;Hill & Montgomerie 1994;MÖller 1994;Veiga & Puerta 1996;Gri¤th et al 1999). Second, expression of characters should have a high degree of environmental determination (Kodric-Brown & Brown 1984;Hill 1992;Andersson 1994;MÖller 1994;Gri¤th et al 1999) since environmental e¡ects (like quality of diet or exposure to disease) should strongly in£uence an individual's overall quality.…”

Section: (A) Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, expression of characters should have a high degree of environmental determination (Kodric-Brown & Brown 1984;Hill 1992;Andersson 1994;MÖller 1994;Gri¤th et al 1999) since environmental e¡ects (like quality of diet or exposure to disease) should strongly in£uence an individual's overall quality. Third, each plumage character should have a unimodal frequency distribution (this is not an absolute requirement for a quality indicator, however unimodal distributions are almost always observed in indicator traits in other species (MÖller & ErritzÖe 1988;Andersson 1992;Hill 1992;MÖller 1994;Wolfenbarger 1999;see Senar (1999) for an exception) and they presumably arise from unimodal distributions in the overall quality underlying the traits). Fourth, di¡erent plumage characters should be positively correlated with one another (Kodric-Brown & Brown 1984; Hill 1992; Camplani et al 1999) (this prediction assumes that the di¡erent characters re£ect, at least in part, some common aspects of quality (such as overall vigour)).…”

Section: (A) Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea that sexually selected ornaments function as condition-dependent indicators of quality (or`indicators';Andersson 1994) has received much of its support from studies of both carotenoid-and melanin-based plumages (for carotenoids, see Hill 1991Hill , 1992Hill & Montgomerie 1994;Gray 1996;Camplani et al 1999;Wolfenbarger 1999;McGraw et al 2001; for melanins, see Rohwer & Rohwer 1978;MÖller & ErritzÖe 1988;Veiga & Puerta 1996;Gri¤th et al 1999). Competitive-signalling theory assumes that variation in these traits must be correlated with some kind of cost if the traits are to signal reliably the overall phenotypic and genotypic constitution of their bearers (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Ornamental plumage does not signal male quality in red-billed queleas

Dale

2000

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sexually selected ornaments often function as condition-dependent signals of quality (or`indicators'). When ornamentation is costly, only high-quality individuals can a¡ord to produce the most elaborate signals. The plumage ornamentation of male red-billed queleas, Quelea quelea, is an ideal candidate for an indicator because it is continuously variable, conspicuous, sexually dimorphic, is displayed only during breeding and is partially based on carotenoid pigmentation. However, I show here that quelea plumage is not an indicator because ¢rst, plumage colour is not correlated with physical condition or age; second, plumage colour is a genetically determined phenotype that is unresponsive to environmental variation; third, di¡erent plumage characters have bimodal distributions; fourth, plumage characters vary independently of one another; and ¢nally, plumage colour is not correlated with reproductive success. To my knowledge, this is the ¢rst demonstration of non-condition dependence in colourful and sexually dimorphic breeding ornamentation. Instead, plumage variation may function as a sexually selected signal of individual identity among territorial males that nest in huge, densely packed and highly synchronized colonies.

show abstract

“…In theory, males of a given species that invest most into secondary sexual trait expression may be of highest phenotypic condition in the population as a result of their superior ability to acquire and assimilate resources for allocation to competing physiological functions (Rowe and Houle 1996;Bonduriansky and Rowe 2005). By extension, males sporting the most welldeveloped ornaments may also be those able to invest most into ejaculate quality and associated structures (e.g., testes; Møller and Erritzoe 1988;Sheldon 1994). In D. bipectinata, because the male sex comb is composed of rows of stout, melanized teeth (modified bristles), internally made up of structural protein (actin) filaments (Tilney et al 2000), variation in ornament size may reveal individual feeding history, and their ability to accumulate body supplies of critical amino acids and other essential nutrients, thereby driving an association between ornament size and ejaculate quality (see also Amitin and Pitnick 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secondary sexual trait size reveals competitive fertilization success in Drosophila bipectinata Duda

Polák

Simmons

2009

Behavioral Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The evolution of male secondary sexual traits traditionally has been ascribed to precopulatory sexual selection. In contrast, the importance of postcopulatory sexual selection for the evolution of secondary sexual traits is uncertain, and what little evidence exists for this process to contribute to the evolution of such traits is mixed. Here we test the hypothesis in Drosophila bipectinata Duda that the male sex comb, a rapidly evolving secondary sexual trait, is under positive postcopulatory sexual selection. We extracted replicate genetic lines exhibiting relatively large and small sex comb size from a natural population. Males from these lines were subjected to an assay of competitive fertilization ability, measured as P 2 , the proportion of a female's clutch of eggs fertilized by the second male to mate. Males with the largest sex combs sired more offspring than less ornamented individuals, demonstrating for the first time in any Drosophila species that postcopulatory sexual selection favors increasing sex comb size. This study identifies a postcopulatory selective mechanism that may be contributing to the evolutionary diversification of a secondary sexual trait.

show abstract

Badge, Body and Testes Size in House Sparrows Passer domesticus

Cited by 43 publications

References 10 publications

Social Status Interacts with Badge Size and Neuroendocrine Physiology to Influence Sexual Behavior in Male House Sparrows <i>(Passer domesticus)</i>

Social Status Interacts with Badge Size and Neuroendocrine Physiology to Influence Sexual Behavior in Male House Sparrows <i>(Passer domesticus)</i>

Ornamental plumage does not signal male quality in red-billed queleas

Secondary sexual trait size reveals competitive fertilization success in Drosophila bipectinata Duda

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About