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Sexual Selection and Blue Tit (Parus Caeruleus) Crown Coloration

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Sexual Selection and Blue Tit (Parus Caeruleus) Crown Coloration Sexual selection and blue tit (Parus caeruleus) crown coloration DISSERTATION der Fakultät für Biologie der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München vorgelegt von Kaspar Delhey durchgeführt am Max Planck Institut für Ornithologie in Seewiesen 1. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. B. Kempenaers 2. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. S. Foitzik Tag der Abgabe: 9 Juni 2005 Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 14 Dezember 2005 Erklärung Hiermit erkläre ich, dass meine Dissertation “Sexual selection and blue tit (Parus caeruleus) crown coloration“ von Prof. Dr. Eberhard Gwinner und Prof. Dr. Bart Kempenaers betreut wurde. Ich habe diese Dissertation selbständig, ohne unerlaubte Hilfe angefertigt. Weder habe ich bereits anderweitig ohne Erfolg versucht, eine Dissertation einzureichen, noch ist diese Arbeit ganz oder in wesentlichen Teilen einer anderen Prüfungskommission vorgelegt worden. Seewiesen, den 8. Juni 2005 (Kaspar Delhey) Table of Contents ABSTRACT...........................................................................................................................6 GENERAL INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................8 Sexual selection and mating systems.................................................................................8 Extra-pair paternity and bird coloration...........................................................................10 Box 1. The colour of birds ...............................................................................................11 The ‘lab rat’......................................................................................................................14 Box 2. Revealing the invisible: measuring blue tit colour...............................................17 Box 3. Manipulating the invisible: crown colour manipulation methods........................20 GENERAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................................22 Chapter 1. Within- and extra-pair success correlate with male crown colour .................22 Chapter 2. Crown colour changes between years with male age but does not predict male overwinter survival. .........................................................................................................24 Chapter 3. Blue tit crown UV-reflectance declines dramatically during the year but this does not affect male reproductive success .......................................................................25 Chapter 4. Do older, less UV ornamented males mimic juveniles to sire extra-pair offspring? Experimental colour manipulations provide no support.................................28 Chapter 5. Male attractiveness and female sex allocation: are old and ugly males sexy? ..........................................................................................................................................31 Chapter 6. Female crown colour does not reflect female quality ....................................35 Concluding remarks and prospects for future work.........................................................36 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................39 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................41 Chapter 1 - Paternity analysis reveals opposing selection pressures on crown coloration in the blue tit (Parus caeruleus).........................................................................................................51 ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................51 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................52 METHODS ..........................................................................................................................53 Study site and general methods........................................................................................53 Colour measurements.......................................................................................................54 Paternity analysis .............................................................................................................54 Statistical analysis............................................................................................................55 1 Table of Contents RESULTS ............................................................................................................................56 Patterns of within-pair and extra-pair paternity ...............................................................56 Male coloration and within-pair success..........................................................................57 Male coloration and extra-pair success............................................................................57 Pairwise comparisons between cuckolder and cuckolded males.....................................60 Total fertilisation success and male coloration................................................................60 DISCUSSION......................................................................................................................61 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................64 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................64 Chapter 2 - Age differences in blue tit plumage colour: within-individual changes or colour- biased survival?........................................................................................................................68 ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................68 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................69 METHODS ..........................................................................................................................70 Study site and general methods........................................................................................70 Colour Measurements ......................................................................................................71 Data analysis ....................................................................................................................72 RESULTS ............................................................................................................................73 Cross-sectional analysis ...................................................................................................73 Longitudinal analysis .......................................................................................................75 Colour and survival..........................................................................................................79 DISCUSSION......................................................................................................................81 Age changes in males and females ..................................................................................81 Age changes in juvenile and older birds ..........................................................................82 Between year repeatability of colour ...............................................................................83 Age effects and survival...................................................................................................83 The function of age-related colour expression in the blue tit ..........................................84 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................85 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................86 Chapter 3 - Seasonal changes in blue tit crown colour: do they signal individual quality? ....90 2 Table of Contents ABSTRACT.........................................................................................................................90 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................91 METHODS ..........................................................................................................................92 Colour measurements.......................................................................................................93 Statistical analysis............................................................................................................93 RESULTS ............................................................................................................................96 General pattern of colour change.....................................................................................96 Individual variation in colour change ............................................................................100 Colour change and male fertilisation success ................................................................102 DISCUSSION....................................................................................................................104 Mechanisms of colour change and individual quality ...................................................104 Implications for sexual selection ...................................................................................105
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