Sex roles in birds: Phylogenetic analyses of the influence of climate, life histories and social environment

Gonzalez‐Voyer, Alejandro; Thomas, Gavin H.; Liker, András; Krüger, Oliver; Komdeur, Jan; Székely, Tamás

doi:10.1111/ele.13938

Cited by 37 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(107 reference statements)

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“…Thus, positive values represent male-biased ornamentation, zero represents unbiased ornamentation, and negative values represent female-biased ornamentation. The average score of five body regions correlated well with three independent datasets of dichromatism: Spearman rank correlations, rs = 0.705, N = 5825 species, p < 0.001 42 , rs = 0.867, N = 905 species, p < 0.001 87 , and rs = 0.542, N = 855 species, p < 0.001 86,88 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…In practice, sexual size dimorphism was calculated for three traits representing body size (body mass (g), tarsus length (mm) and wing length (mm)) and was calculated as log (male trait value/female trait value) 85 . Sexual dichromatism was obtained following Gonzalez-Voyer et al ( 2022) 86 . In short, the mean value of plumage dimorphism is estimated from five body regions (head, back, belly, wings and tail).…”

Section: Explanatory Variables In Statistical Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Who takes care of the kids at when? Sex differences in avian parental care

Wang

2021

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Parental care in birds usually consists of many elaborate forms, including nest building, incubation, provisioning the offspring and protecting them. Given the various life history differences between sexes, parents may have different opportunity costs of providing care in a specific form. But we still do not know whether males and females generally differ in their involvement in different care forms across stages of a breeding cycle, such as nest building, incubation and chick provisioning. Here, we performed a survey of parental care regarding which sex provides care in 882 species of passerine birds and found significant differences in the frequency distributions of sex-role patterns (i.e. female-only care, biparental care, and male-only care) across three distinct forms of parental care. This result showed clearly that parental care should not be treated as a unitary trait, but a composite of integrated features with diverse functions. Using a set of linear mixed-effect models we tested the effects of sexual selection, certainty of paternity, predation risk, and offspring's life history traits in driving the variation in sex roles. In general, we found species with female-only care tended to be under strong sexual selection on males, and uncertainty of paternity could reduce male care.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Explanatory Variables In Statistical Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who takes care of the kids at when? Sex differences in avian parental care

Wang

2021

Preprint

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“…The absence of a relationship may be due to the fact that most passerines have a monogamous mating system (Lack 1968), and therefore polygyny frequency may not be an ideal proxy to measure mating opportunities. In addition, a study with a much broader sample of species found rather weak correlations between different sex role components (that is estimates of intra-sexual competition (sex size dimorphism), mate attraction (sexual dichromatism), mating system and parental care), including a weak correlation between mating system and the investment in parental care by both sexes (Gonzalez-Voyer et al 2022). Such weak correlations between sex role components could explain why we did not find an association between the mating system and the presence of carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Liker et al (2015) compiled detailed information on relative investment by each sex in six components of avian parental care from reference books, and published literature (references in Liker et al 2015 updated in Gonzalez-Voyer et al 2022). We focus here on only three components: nest building, incubation, and chick feeding, which are the ones for which information was available for the greatest number of species.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration is associated with reduced male care in passerine birds

Rincón-Rubio

Székely

Liker

et al. 2022

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The immense diversity of plumage coloration exhibited by birds is the result of either pigments deposited in the feathers or microstructural arrangements of feather barbules. Some of the most common pigments are carotenoids that produce bright yellow, orange and red colors. Carotenoids differ from other pigments since birds cannot synthesize them de novo and must obtain them from the diet. Carotenoid pigments are usually associated with signaling and sexual selection, although they also have antioxidant properties and play a role in the immune response. Here we hypothesize that carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration functions as a signal of a male's tendency to invest in offspring care because they play an important role in the self-maintenance and may provide key information about individual quality; allowing females to obtain information about a males' tendency to invest in offspring care. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses across 350 passerine birds we show that species that consume carotenoid-rich foods have more carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration than species with carotenoid-poor diets. In addition, carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration is associated with a decreased male investment in offspring care. Our results suggest investment into carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration trades off against male investment into offspring care and will likely have broad implications for our understanding of the ecological contexts that facilitate various evolutionary processes such as sexual selection or signaling associated with plumage colors.

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“…Substantial emphasis has been placed on conventional “sex roles” for female and male animals, in line with the Darwin-Bateman paradigm of sexual selection ( Janicke et al, 2016 ; Gonzalez-Voyer et al, 2022 ). This binary framing reinforces what is expected for sex-specific courtship, competition, parental care, and their endocrinological correlates, thereby limiting how we examine and interpret variation in natural history ( Ah-King and Ahnesjö, 2013 ).…”

Section: Barriers To Our Understanding Of Avian Endocrinology In Femalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond a biased binary: A perspective on the misconceptions, challenges, and implications of studying females in avian behavioral endocrinology

et al. 2022

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For decades, avian endocrinology has been informed by male perspectives and male-focused research, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of female birds. Male birds have been favored as research subjects because their reproductive behaviors are considered more conspicuous and their reproductive physiology is presumably less complex than female birds. However, female birds should not be ignored, as female reproductive behavior and physiology are essential for the propagation of all avian species. Endocrine research in female birds has made much progress in the last 20 years, but a substantial disparity in knowledge between male and female endocrinology persists. In this perspective piece, we provide examples of why ornithology has neglected female endocrinology, and we propose considerations for field and laboratory techniques to facilitate future studies. We highlight recent advances that showcase the importance of female avian endocrinology, and we challenge historic applications of an oversimplified, male-biased lens. We further provide examples of species for which avian behavior differs from the stereotypically described behaviors of male and female birds, warning investigators of the pitfalls in approaching endocrinology with a binary bias. We hope this piece will inspire investigators to engage in more comprehensive studies with female birds, to close the knowledge gap between the sexes, and to look beyond the binary when drawing conclusions about what is ‘male’ versus ‘female’ biology.

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Sex roles in birds: Phylogenetic analyses of the influence of climate, life histories and social environment

Cited by 37 publications

References 69 publications

Who takes care of the kids at when? Sex differences in avian parental care

Who takes care of the kids at when? Sex differences in avian parental care

Carotenoid-dependent plumage coloration is associated with reduced male care in passerine birds

Beyond a biased binary: A perspective on the misconceptions, challenges, and implications of studying females in avian behavioral endocrinology

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