Female-specific color is a signal of quality in the striped plateau lizard (Sceloporus virgatus)

Weiss, Stacey L.

doi:10.1093/beheco/arl001

Cited by 126 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…The affected ornament features are sensitive to circulating CORT levels and are predictive of both female and offspring phenotype (Weiss, 2006;Weiss et al, 2009;Weiss et al, 2011). The ornament's susceptibility to the physiological effects of stress is independent of the interrelationships between CORT and body mass, as well as those between CORT and the sex steroid hormones.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We calculated body condition as the standardized residuals from a regression of body mass on SVL 3 (e.g. Weiss, 2006). We use data from the initial measurement, measurement 2 (at the time of blood sampling) and measurement 6 (the final measurement) in analyses.…”

Section: Female Manipulations and Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We then quantified peak ornament size and peak ornament color. Peak ornament size was measured by selecting orange pixels from the chosen photograph using the 'color range' command of Adobe Photoshop 4.0 (Weiss, 2006) and determining the area of the selected pixels (in mm 2 ) in NIH Image 1.60 (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA).…”

Section: Female Manipulations and Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Females develop orange throat patches during the ovarian cycle, with peak ornament size and color occurring around the time of ovulation (Weiss, 2002). Though all reproductive females express some orange color, the extent of ornamentation at peak expression varies among individuals and that variation may function as an honest signal of female phenotype as well as the quality of her eggs and her future offspring (Weiss, 2006;Weiss et al, 2009;Weiss et al, 2011). If corticosterone mediates the expression of this honest signal, then we predict that females experimentally exposed to stressors will produce smaller and less colorful ornaments relative to control females.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of stress on female-specific ornamentation

Weiss

Mulligan

Wilson

et al. 2013

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYSignal honesty is theorized to be maintained by condition-dependent trait expression. However, the mechanisms mediating the condition dependence of sexually selected traits are often unknown. New work suggests that elevated glucocorticoid levels during physiological stress may play a role in maintaining signal honesty. Here, we experimentally examine the effect of both chronic and acute stress on the expression of the condition-dependent ornamentation of female striped plateau lizards, Sceloporus virgatus. Females were stressed either chronically via corticosterone implants or relatively acutely via autotomy, were sham manipulated or were left unmanipulated. Both stressors resulted in elevations in corticosterone within physiologically relevant levels, though the implants resulted in significantly higher levels than did autotomy. Corticosterone-implanted females were less likely to produce a clutch of eggs, but those individuals that did reproduce had reproductive output similar to that of females from other treatment groups. Compared with females in other groups, the corticosterone-implanted females tended to develop smaller ornaments that had less UV and orange-to-red wavelength reflectance relative to medium wavelength reflectance. The sex steroid hormones testosterone and estradiol were correlated to corticosterone levels, but did not appear to underlie the effect on ornament expression; of the steroids measured, only corticosterone levels were negatively related to ornament size and coloration. Thus, the condition-dependent ornamentation of female lizards is sensitive to chronic elevations in stress hormones, supporting their importance in the maintenance of signal honesty.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Female Manipulations and Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Female Manipulations and Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of stress on female-specific ornamentation

Weiss

Mulligan

Wilson

et al. 2013

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Ornamental traits may provide honest information about the quality of their bearer (Zahavi, 1975;Kodric-Brown and Brown, 1984;Grafen, 1990), and an accumulating number of studies have demonstrated that ornamental traits reflect aspects of female quality (see Doutrelant et al, 2008;Gladbach et al, 2010;MartinezPadilla et al, 2011;Henderson et al, 2013). For example, some studies suggest that elaborately ornamented females transmit more resources to eggs (Midamegbe et al, 2013), have higher fecundity (Jawor et al, 2004;Cornwallis and Birkhead, 2007), provide more parental care to offspring (Linville et al, 1998;Weiss, 2006;Silva et al, 2008;García-Navas et al, 2012), or produce offspring of higher genetic quality (e.g., offspring with greater immune defences; Roulin et al, 2000;Matysioková and Remeš, 2013). As such, males may benefit from assessing the attractiveness of female ornamentation when deciding how much parental care to invest in offspring.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of making success in female Tree Swallows (Tachycineta Bicolor)

Berzins¹

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Females from a wide variety of taxa display elaborate ornaments and aggressive behaviours that are similar to those expressed by males. Although recent empirical investigation has demonstrated that ornamental traits and behaviours of females may function by attracting mates or signalling competitive ability when competing against conspecifics for access to mates and resources, less is known about how such traits influence the mating success of free-living female birds. For my research, I experimentally examined how variation in plumage brightness and behaviour of female tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) influenced their mating success.Plumage brightness of females had no influence on investment in parental care or mating strategies of males, or the quality of social mate paired to the female. These results suggest that bright plumage is not a signal of attractiveness preferred by male tree swallows.In contrast, I report evidence that plumage brightness of female tree swallows is involved in agonistic interactions with conspecifics. Females whose plumage brightness was enhanced to signal high quality were less able to retain their nest site than females whose plumage brightness was reduced to signal low quality. This suggests that females displaying bright plumage may be challenged by conspecifics of high quality to test the quality signalled by bright plumage, and is supported by the finding that females displaying enhanced plumage brightness suffered social costs, such as delaying breeding and producing low-quality nestlings. Despite these costs, females in the enhanced plumage brightness treatment mated with extra-pair males that were higher quality than their social mate.Behaviour of females, manipulated by elevating testosterone (T), lowered the proportion of extra-pair offspring in the broods of T-treated females. Females manipulated so that the androgenic and estrogenic actions of T were blocked also produced fewer extra-pair iii offspring, and suggest that the androgenic and/or estrogenic actions of T influence extra-pair copulation behavior of female tree swallows. In conclusion, my results show that plumage brightness and behaviour of female tree swallows influence their mating success, and highlight the importance of studies experimentally manipulating ornamental and behavioural traits of free-living female birds prior to breeding.iv

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The interplay between natural and sexual selection in the evolution of sexual size dimorphism inSceloporuslizards (Squamata: Phrynosomatidae)

Jiménez-Arcos

Sanabria‐Urbán

Castillo

2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) evolves because body size is usually related to reproductive success through different pathways in females and males. Female body size is strongly correlated with fecundity, while in males, body size is correlated with mating success. In many lizard species, males are larger than females, whereas in others, females are the larger sex, suggesting that selection on fecundity has been stronger than sexual selection on males. As placental development or egg retention requires more space within the abdominal cavity, it has been suggested that females of viviparous lizards have larger abdomens or body size than their oviparous relatives. Thus, it would be expected that females of viviparous species attain larger sizes than their oviparous relatives, generating more biased patterns of SSD. We test these predictions using lizards of the genus Sceloporus. After controlling for phylogenetic effects, our results confirm a strong relationship between female body size and fecundity, suggesting that selection for higher fecundity has had a main role in the evolution of female body size. However, oviparous and viviparous females exhibit similar sizes and allometric relationships. Even though there is a strong effect of body size on female fecundity, once phylogenetic effects are considered, we find that the slope of male on female body size is significantly larger than one, providing evidence of greater evolutionary divergence of male body size. These results suggest that the relative impact of sexual selection acting on males has been stronger than fecundity selection acting on females within Sceloporus lizards.

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Female-specific color is a signal of quality in the striped plateau lizard (Sceloporus virgatus)

Cited by 126 publications

References 57 publications

Effect of stress on female-specific ornamentation

Effect of stress on female-specific ornamentation

Determinants of making success in female Tree Swallows (Tachycineta Bicolor)

The interplay between natural and sexual selection in the evolution of sexual size dimorphism inSceloporuslizards (Squamata: Phrynosomatidae)

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