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Density dependence and habitat quality modulate the intensity of display territory defence in an exploded lekking species

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Abstract

We evaluated the effect of conspecific abundance and habitat quality of leks on the territorial behaviour of males in an exploded lekking species, the Little Bustard (Tetrax tetrax). The hypothesis that males more intensely defend territories with higher conspecific abundance and better habitat quality was evaluated experimentally analysing the agonistic response of experimental males to male decoys placed on their displaying areas. Decoy experiments showed that the intensity of display territory defence by little bustard males is density dependent. The time experimental males took to return to their display sites after decoy placement decreased with abundance of both males and females. The strength of their final response was positively associated to local male and female abundance in the vicinity of their display sites. Habitat quality also influenced males’ display territory defence since the intensity of male response increased with the degree of natural vegetation cover. Habitat quality was particularly relevant in explaining variation of experimental males’ snort call rate, which decreased with the degree in plough cover and increased with the number of fields in the lekking area. Snort call rate decreased with the level of male aggregation and was lowest in males exhibiting the strongest aggressive response to decoys. These results add new evidence for the density dependence of species’ breeding territorial behaviour, supporting density-dependent models of lek formation and reinforcing the role of resources defence in exploded lek mating systems.

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Acknowledgments

Particular thanks are due to Vincent Bretagnolle and Frédéric Jiguet for lending their little bustard decoys for experiments. We thank all farmers, hunting managers and gamekeepers of our study areas for allowing us to work on their properties. Salvador Luna, Laura Iglesias, Juan Bécares, Núria Pocino, Sergi Ricart, Pau Ferrer and María Castañeda collaborated during some stages of the work. FC and JM-P were supported by a JAE-Doc contract funded by Spanish Research Council and the European Social Fund (ESF), and ELG was funded by a FPU grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education. The comments of two anonymous reviewers sensibly improved the first version of the manuscript. This paper contributes to projects CGL2004-06147-C02-01, CGL2004-06147-C02-02 and CGL2009-13029/BOS of the Spanish Ministry of Science, as well as to the REMEDINAL2 network of the Community of Madrid (S-2009/AMB/1783). MBM, FC and GB contributed equally to the final outcome of the present study.

Ethical standards

The experiments here described complied with the laws of Spain and the regions (Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid) where they were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grupo de Investigación en Ecología y Conservación de Sistemas Terrestres (TEG), Departamento de Ecología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, c/ Darwin, 2, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel B. Morales & Eladio García de la Morena

  2. Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos, IREC (CSIC, UCLM, JCCM), Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Fabián Casas, Gustau Calabuig, Jesús Martínez-Padilla, Jesús T. García & Javier Viñuela

  3. Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, Carretera de Sacramento s/n, 04120, La Cañada de San Urbano, Almería, Spain

    Fabián Casas

  4. SECIM, c/ Segura, 2, 28410, Manzanares el Real, Madrid, Spain

    Eladio García de la Morena

  5. Biodiversity and Animal Conservation Lab (BAC-Lab), Àrea de Biodiversitat, Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya, Crta. Sant Llorenç, km 2, 25280, Solsona, Catalonia, Spain

    Anna Ponjoan & Gerard Bota

  6. Departament de Biologia Animal, Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRbio), Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal 643, 08028, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Santi Mañosa

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  1. Manuel B. Morales
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  2. Fabián Casas
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  3. Eladio García de la Morena
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  4. Anna Ponjoan
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  5. Gustau Calabuig
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  6. Jesús Martínez-Padilla
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  7. Jesús T. García
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  8. Santi Mañosa
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  9. Javier Viñuela
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  10. Gerard Bota
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manuel B. Morales.

Additional information

Communicated by J. A. Graves

Manuel B. Morales, Fabián Casas, and Gerard Bota contributed equally to this work.

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Morales, M.B., Casas, F., García de la Morena, E. et al. Density dependence and habitat quality modulate the intensity of display territory defence in an exploded lekking species. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 68, 1493–1504 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-014-1758-z

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