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Female-female competition is influenced by forehead patch expression in pied flycatcher females

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Abstract

There is increasing evidence that sexual selection operates in females and not only in males. However, the function of female signals in intrasexual competition has been little studied in species with conventional sex roles. In the Iberian populations of the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), some females express a white forehead patch, a trait that in other European populations, only males exhibit and has become a classical example in studies of sexual selection. Here, we investigated whether the expression of this trait plays a role in female-female competition during early breeding stages. To test this hypothesis, we simulated territorial intrusions by challenging resident females with stuffed female decoys expressing or not a forehead patch. We found that resident females directed more attacks per trial and maintained closer distances to non-patched decoys than to patched ones. Also, patched females were more likely to attack the decoy than non-patched females. Interestingly, females were more aggressive against the decoys when their mate was absent. This may indicate that females relax territory vigilance in the presence of their mate or that males interfere in the interaction between competing females. The behavior of resident males was also observed, although it was not affected by decoy’s patch expression. Our findings suggest that the forehead patch plays a role in female intrasexual competition. If the forehead patch signals fighting ability, as it does in males, we may interpret that non-patched females probably avoided repeating costly agonistic encounters with the most dominant rivals.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Melissa Hughes and two anonymous reviewers for valuable and constructive comments. We thank Carlos Alonso-Alvarez for suggestions on statistical analyses. Research was funded by projects CGL2010-19233-C03-02/BOS and CGL2004-00787/BOS to J. Moreno, and CGL2012-40026-C02-01 to SM (former Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain). J. Morales is presently supported by JAE-doc contract (program “Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios” funded by the Spanish Research Council-CSIC and the European Social Fund), SI by CONICYT (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica; Ministerio de Educación de Chile) scholarship, EL by a grant from Fundaçăo para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT; Portugal), and JMP and GT  by a Juan de la Cierva contract (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad).

Ethical standards

The present study was performed under the license of Dirección General del Medio Natural (Junta de Castilla y León, Spain) and complies with the Spanish current laws and with ASAB/ABS Guidelines for the Treatment of Animals in Behavioural Research (2012).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Author notes

  1. O. Gordo

    Present address: Department of Conservation Biology , Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), c/ Américo Vespucio sn, Sevilla, Spain

  2. E. Lobato

    Present address: Behavioural Ecology Group, Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO), Campus Agrário de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal

  3. S. Ippi

    Present address: Departamento de Zoología, Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche, Universidad Nacional del Comahue—CONICET, Río Negro, Argentina

  4. J. Martínez-de la Puente

    Present address: Department of Wetland Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), c/ Américo Vespucio sn, Sevilla, Spain

  5. G. Tomás

    Present address: Departamento de Ecología Funcional y Evolutiva, Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas—CSIC, Almería, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales—CSIC, c/ José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    J. Morales, O. Gordo, E. Lobato, S. Ippi, J. Martínez-de la Puente, G. Tomás, S. Merino & J. Moreno

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  1. J. Morales
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Correspondence to J. Morales.

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Communicated by M. Hughes

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Morales, J., Gordo, O., Lobato, E. et al. Female-female competition is influenced by forehead patch expression in pied flycatcher females. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 68, 1195–1204 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-014-1730-y

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