Color ornaments and territory position in king penguins

Keddar, Ismaël; Jouventin, Pierre; Dobson, F. Stephen

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2015.07.003

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Parker, Knapp & Rosenfield, 2002;Bortolotti et al, 2009). King penguins are known to aggressively compete over breeding sites, and thus coloured ornaments might convey information about social dominance or aggressiveness (Viera et al, 2008;Keddar, Jouventin & Dobson, 2015a). King penguins are known to aggressively compete over breeding sites, and thus coloured ornaments might convey information about social dominance or aggressiveness (Viera et al, 2008;Keddar, Jouventin & Dobson, 2015a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social competition has been suggested to favour the evolution of ornaments as 'badges of status' that are used in alternative contexts to mate choice (West-Eberhard, 1979;Kraaijeveld et al, 2007). King penguins are known to aggressively compete over breeding sites, and thus coloured ornaments might convey information about social dominance or aggressiveness (Viera et al, 2008;Keddar, Jouventin & Dobson, 2015a). Specifically, given that males perform the first and longest reproductive fast of the breeding cycle (typically 1-month including courtship and incubation; Stonehouse, 1960), information on body condition should be more important to females.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mutually honest? Physiological ‘qualities’ signalled by colour ornaments in monomorphic king penguins

Viblanc

Dobson

Stier

et al. 2015

Biol. J. Linn. Soc.

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International audienceMate choice is expected to be important for the fitness of both sexes for species in which successful reproductionrelies strongly on shared and substantial parental investment by males and females. Reciprocal selection maythen favour the evolution of morphological signals providing mutual information on the condition/quality oftentative partners. However, because males and females often have differing physiological constraints, it isunclear which proximate physiological pathways guarantee the honesty of male and female signals in similarlyornamented species. We used the monomorphic king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) as a model to investigatethe physiological qualities signalled by colour and morphological ornaments known to be under sexual selection(coloration of the beak spots and size of auricular feather patches). In both sexes of this slow-breeding seabird, weinvestigated the links between ornaments and multiple indices of individual quality; including body condition,immunity, stress and energy status. In both sexes, individual innate immunity, resting metabolic rate, and theability to mount a stress response in answer to an acute disturbance (capture) were similarly signalled by variousaspects of beak coloration or auricular patch size. However, we also reveal interesting and contrastingrelationships between males and females in how ornaments may signal individual quality. Body condition andoxidative stress status were signalled by beak coloration, although in opposite directions for the sexes. Over anexhaustive set of physiological variables, several suggestive patterns indicated the conveyance of honestinformation about mate quality in this monomorphic species. However, sex-specific patterns suggested thatmonomorphic ornaments may signal different information concerning body mass and oxidative balance of malesand females, at least in king penguins

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutually honest? Physiological ‘qualities’ signalled by colour ornaments in monomorphic king penguins

Viblanc

Dobson

Stier

et al. 2015

Biol. J. Linn. Soc.

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“…; Keddar et al. ). Intrasexual selection via aggressive contests is strongly biased toward males, and female–female fights for males, if any, are rare (Keddar et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…; Keddar et al. ). In the crested auklet, another mutually ornamented seabird, the most ornamented individuals are socially dominant and experience higher mating success than less ornamented individuals (Jones & Hunter , ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Mate Choice and Colored Beak Spots of King Penguins

et al. 2015

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International audienceThe theory of sexual selection explains sexual dimorphism in ornaments used in mate choice. Mutual mate choice is a form of sexual selection that might explain sexually monomorphic ornamental traits. Under mutual mate choice, both sexes select partners based on the same ornament. We tested the mutual mate choice hypothesis in a mutually ornamented seabird, the king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus), through observations ofthe pair formation process in the ﬁeld. Penguins that were ready to mate formed displaying pairs at the edge of the colony. Some of these pairsmoved into the breeding colony and produced an egg (deﬁnitive pairs), while other pairs separated and often switched to another potential partner (temporary pairs). Colored ornaments were quantiﬁed using color vision modeling. We predicted that birds would mate assortatively by theirelaborate ornamental traits (speciﬁcally, colors of beak spots, auricular patches of feathers, and breast patch of feathers). We also predicted thatdeﬁnitive pairs would exhibit more elaborate ornaments than temporary pairs. The mutual mate choice hypothesis was supported by assortativepairing for color of the beak spots, but not for color or size of the auricular patches or for the color of the breast patch. An alternative hypothesis wasalso consistent with our results that female choice for a male ornamental trait and superior female condition associated with the same trait pro-duced assortative pairing patterns. More UV- and yellow-colored beak spots for females in deﬁnitive than temporary pairs supported the femalechoice hypothesis over the mutual mate choice hypothesis, but previous experimental results from altered beak spot colors supported the latter.Evidence to date thus supports both the mutual mate choice and female choice hypotheses

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“…Experimental reductions of beak UV reflectance and auricular patch size have been shown to decrease the likelihood of pairing and thus the initiation of a reproductive event (Jouventin, Nolan, Dobson, & Nicolaus, ; Nolan et al., ; Pincemy, Dobson, & Jouventin, ), demonstrating their important use in mutual mate choice. Correlative studies have also reported that individuals with larger auricular patches are more aggressive (Viera, Nolan, Côté, Jouventin, & Groscolas, ) enabling them to occupy more central breeding territories in the colony thought to be of greater reproductive value (Keddar, Jouventin, & Dobson, ; Viera et al., ). Those results suggest that auricular patch size may function as a social signal of dominance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental stress during molt suggests the evolution of condition‐dependent and condition‐independent ornaments in the king penguin

Schull

Robin

Dobson

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Sexual selection and social selection are two important theories proposed for explaining the evolution of colorful ornamental traits in animals. Understanding signal honesty requires studying how environmental and physiological factors during development influence the showy nature of sexual and social ornaments. We experimentally manipulated physiological stress and immunity status during the molt in adult king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), and studied the consequences of our treatments on colourful ornaments (yellow‐orange and UV beak spots and yellow‐orange auricular feather patches) known to be used in sexual and social contexts in this species. Whereas some ornamental features showed strong condition‐dependence (yellow auricular feather chroma, yellow and UV chroma of the beak), others were condition‐independent and remained highly correlated before and after the molt (auricular patch size and beak UV hue). Our study provides a rare examination of the links between ornament determinism and selection processes in the wild. We highlight the coexistence of ornaments costly to produce that may be honest signals used in mate choice, and ornaments for which honesty may be enforced by social mediation or rely on genetic constraints.

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Color ornaments and territory position in king penguins

Cited by 9 publications

References 40 publications

Mutually honest? Physiological ‘qualities’ signalled by colour ornaments in monomorphic king penguins

Mutually honest? Physiological ‘qualities’ signalled by colour ornaments in monomorphic king penguins

Mate Choice and Colored Beak Spots of King Penguins

Experimental stress during molt suggests the evolution of condition‐dependent and condition‐independent ornaments in the king penguin

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