Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success
Conspicuous morphological traits that signal aspects of physical state of the owner may be used as cues in mate choice, leading to sexual selection of ornamental traits. In birds, colour patterns as well as structural attributes may constitute ornaments affecting mate choice. In the breeding season,...
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fttsvojs:oai:journal.fi:article/133846 2023-09-05T13:23:55+02:00 Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success Schonert, Beate Byrkjedal, Ingvar Lislevand, Terje 2014-07-01 application/pdf https://ornisfennica.journal.fi/article/view/133846 eng eng BirdLife Finland https://ornisfennica.journal.fi/article/view/133846/82398 https://ornisfennica.journal.fi/article/view/133846 Ornis Fennica; Vol 91 Nro 2 (2014); 79–87 Ornis Fennica; Vol. 91 No. 2 (2014); 79–87 0030-5685 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Peer-reviewed Article 2014 fttsvojs 2023-08-23T23:03:11Z Conspicuous morphological traits that signal aspects of physical state of the owner may be used as cues in mate choice, leading to sexual selection of ornamental traits. In birds, colour patterns as well as structural attributes may constitute ornaments affecting mate choice. In the breeding season, Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus males possess long crests, contrast-rich black and white facial markings, a black breast, and a shining greenish dorsal side. In non-breeding and juvenile plumages, and in females, crests are shorter, facial patterns have less clear contrasts, and breast and dorsal side possess varying amounts of light fringes. Depending onmoult energetics in latewinter/early spring, when males acquire their breeding plumage, the state of these characters could potentially signal male condition to females prospecting for mates. We examined if these traits correlated with male mating success in this polygynous species, predicting males with the most expressed ornamental characters (a) tomate earlier and (b) to gain more mates.Trait states were ranked for 31 males of which breeding phenology and number of mates were known. No correlationwas found between trait expression and date of first egg laid on the territory and number of mates did not correlate with trait expression. Thus, the study did not confirm that females use crest length, breast blackness and face contrasts or lack of dorsal fringes as cues in their mate choice. This could be because the elaborate traits do not have an ornamental function important for femalemate choice, but experimental studies would be needed to rigorously test this hypothesis. Article in Journal/Newspaper Vanellus vanellus Federation of Finnish Learned Societies: Scientific Journals Online |
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Open Polar |
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Federation of Finnish Learned Societies: Scientific Journals Online |
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fttsvojs |
language |
English |
description |
Conspicuous morphological traits that signal aspects of physical state of the owner may be used as cues in mate choice, leading to sexual selection of ornamental traits. In birds, colour patterns as well as structural attributes may constitute ornaments affecting mate choice. In the breeding season, Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus males possess long crests, contrast-rich black and white facial markings, a black breast, and a shining greenish dorsal side. In non-breeding and juvenile plumages, and in females, crests are shorter, facial patterns have less clear contrasts, and breast and dorsal side possess varying amounts of light fringes. Depending onmoult energetics in latewinter/early spring, when males acquire their breeding plumage, the state of these characters could potentially signal male condition to females prospecting for mates. We examined if these traits correlated with male mating success in this polygynous species, predicting males with the most expressed ornamental characters (a) tomate earlier and (b) to gain more mates.Trait states were ranked for 31 males of which breeding phenology and number of mates were known. No correlationwas found between trait expression and date of first egg laid on the territory and number of mates did not correlate with trait expression. Thus, the study did not confirm that females use crest length, breast blackness and face contrasts or lack of dorsal fringes as cues in their mate choice. This could be because the elaborate traits do not have an ornamental function important for femalemate choice, but experimental studies would be needed to rigorously test this hypothesis. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Schonert, Beate Byrkjedal, Ingvar Lislevand, Terje |
spellingShingle |
Schonert, Beate Byrkjedal, Ingvar Lislevand, Terje Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success |
author_facet |
Schonert, Beate Byrkjedal, Ingvar Lislevand, Terje |
author_sort |
Schonert, Beate |
title |
Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success |
title_short |
Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success |
title_full |
Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success |
title_fullStr |
Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success |
title_full_unstemmed |
Plumage ornaments in male Northern Lapwings Vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success |
title_sort |
plumage ornaments in male northern lapwings vanellus vanellus may not be a reliable indicator of their mating success |
publisher |
BirdLife Finland |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
https://ornisfennica.journal.fi/article/view/133846 |
genre |
Vanellus vanellus |
genre_facet |
Vanellus vanellus |
op_source |
Ornis Fennica; Vol 91 Nro 2 (2014); 79–87 Ornis Fennica; Vol. 91 No. 2 (2014); 79–87 0030-5685 |
op_relation |
https://ornisfennica.journal.fi/article/view/133846/82398 https://ornisfennica.journal.fi/article/view/133846 |
_version_ |
1776204478178918400 |