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Mediating male–male interactions: the role of the UV blue crest coloration in blue tits

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Abstract

Badges of status, usually color patches, are hypothesized to serve as important signals within natural populations by communicating an individual’s fighting ability or aggressiveness before an interaction ever takes place. These signals, which may evolve via sexual and/or social selection, mediate intra-specific competition by influencing the outcome or escalation of contests between individuals. The last 10 years saw the rise of interest in the role of ultraviolet (UV)-based coloration in intra-sexual communication. However, the rare experimental studies that tested this hypothesis found opposite results, which may originate from the different methodological procedures used to assess the badge of status theory. We present here the results of an experiment testing whether male blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) respond differently to unfamiliar conspecifics presenting contrasted UV crest coloration. In an aviary, we simultaneously presented two caged blue tits with enhanced (UV+) or reduced (UV−) crest coloration to a focal bird. We found that focal males acted more aggressively towards the UV− males than UV+ males. In addition, focal males fed more often close to males that were similar in brightness or duller than themselves. We conclude that, in blue tits, UV blue crest coloration affects both social and aggressive responses towards unfamiliar individuals, and thus it has some properties of a badge of status.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Marie Pierre Dubois for helping with the molecular sexing, Marcel Lambrechts for the stimulating discussions, Mireille Son for helping with ringing permits, Eric Dincuff for the efficient help during the trapping sessions, Jos Milner for English corrections and comments, and two anonymous referees for their constructive comments on the manuscript. Birds were ringed under CRBPO authorization and kept in an aviary under the authorizations of the DSV. This work was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (C.N.R.S.) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (A.N.R. JC05_43762 and 09-JCJC-0050-01).

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  1. Alice Rémy

    Present address: Faculty of Forestry and Wildlife Management, Hedmark University College, 2480, Koppang, Norway

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  1. CEFE-CNRS UMR5175, 1919 Rte de Mende, 34293, Montpellier, France

    Alice Rémy, Arnaud Grégoire, Philippe Perret & Claire Doutrelant

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Correspondence to Claire Doutrelant.

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Communicated by: K. McGraw

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Rémy, A., Grégoire, A., Perret, P. et al. Mediating male–male interactions: the role of the UV blue crest coloration in blue tits. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 64, 1839–1847 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-0995-z

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