Abstract
Female ornaments in species with conventional sex roles often indicate individual quality, but the evolutionary forces maintaining them are less clear. Sexual competition for breeding opportunities may represent an important role for female signals, especially in polygynous species, but there is little experimental evidence for this. The wing patch size (WPS) of female collared flycatchers indicates age and body condition and predicts social mating patterns. We challenged nest-building females with decoy females of varying WPS and found that the aggressive response of residents increased with decoy WPS, suggesting a role for this female ornament in territorial competition. Our results explain why female WPS predicts territorial distances when mated to a polygynous male and indicate that the role of WPS in female competitive interactions is similar to that in males of the same population.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to M. Herényi, B. Rosivall and E. Szöllősi for help with the fieldwork. This study was supported by OTKA grants no. T49650, T49678 and PD72117 to J. T., L. Z. G. and G. H., respectively, a Bolyai fellowship to G. H. and by grants from FWO-Flanders and the University of Antwerp to M. E., L. Z. G. and G. H. Our work adhered to the current laws of Hungary.
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Hegyi, G., Garamszegi, L.Z., Eens, M. et al. Female ornamentation and territorial conflicts in collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis). Naturwissenschaften 95, 993–996 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0408-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0408-6