TY - JOUR
T1 - Dawn song of eastern kingbirds
T2 - Intrapopulation variability and sociobiological correlates
AU - Sexton, Karen
AU - Murphy, Michael T.
AU - Redmond, Lucas J.
AU - Dolan, Amy C.
N1 - Funding Information:
We would not have been able to accomplish this work without the generosity of Cal and Alice Eltshoff and Malheur Wildlife Associates (MWA). The staff of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in particular Rick Roy, granted access to all areas of the refuge and encouraged our research, and for the latter we are especially grateful. Kelly Hoffman and Rick Ernst also helped collect song data and we thank them for joining us in those very early morning forays into the darkness. Portions of this research were supported by funds provided to ACD from the American Ornithologists’ Union Student Research Award and The American Museum of Natural History’s Frank M. Chapman Research Fund. Finally, W. John Smith provided extremely useful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript, as did two anonymous reviewers. We thank all three for their comments greatly improved our presentation.
PY - 2007/10/1
Y1 - 2007/10/1
N2 - We quantify the singing behaviour of eastern kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus) in the 'dawn song' period to describe variation in performance, identify sources of variation, and identify the main recipient(s) of the information conveyed in the display. All males (N = 87) participated in dawn song, but the probability that a male did not sing increased if he was relatively isolated, and it was late in the season. The earliest and longest song bouts were made by males with many neighbours and when population level female fertility was high. High song rates were typical of males in dense nesting assemblages, early in the season and nest cycle, and when social mates were infertile. However, among males with active nests, song rates varied only with neighbour density and either date or population level female fertility. Given the strong inverse correlation between population fertility and date, we suspect that population fertility drove the relationships. The association of start time and song rate with population fertility, continuation of dawn song after territory establishment, and depressed song rate when mates were fertile, are all consistent with the hypothesis that the availability of extra-pair females is the primary factor selecting for male participation in dawn song.
AB - We quantify the singing behaviour of eastern kingbirds (Tyrannus tyrannus) in the 'dawn song' period to describe variation in performance, identify sources of variation, and identify the main recipient(s) of the information conveyed in the display. All males (N = 87) participated in dawn song, but the probability that a male did not sing increased if he was relatively isolated, and it was late in the season. The earliest and longest song bouts were made by males with many neighbours and when population level female fertility was high. High song rates were typical of males in dense nesting assemblages, early in the season and nest cycle, and when social mates were infertile. However, among males with active nests, song rates varied only with neighbour density and either date or population level female fertility. Given the strong inverse correlation between population fertility and date, we suspect that population fertility drove the relationships. The association of start time and song rate with population fertility, continuation of dawn song after territory establishment, and depressed song rate when mates were fertile, are all consistent with the hypothesis that the availability of extra-pair females is the primary factor selecting for male participation in dawn song.
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U2 - 10.1163/156853907781890922
DO - 10.1163/156853907781890922
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34548700107
SN - 0005-7959
VL - 144
SP - 1273
EP - 1295
JO - Behaviour
JF - Behaviour
IS - 10
ER -