Development of sexual signals in bowerbirds (Ref: 4235)

雄性园丁鸟以其复杂的求偶表演而闻名，其中包括装饰着彩色物体的凉亭、发声和有力的展示动作。雄性大圆顶鸟(Ptilonorhynchus Nuchalis)也用它们的弓来创造视觉技巧，影响观看者对他在展示期间呈现的装饰品的感知。尽管雄性在向雌性求爱时会产生不同的信号，但人们对雄性如何构建弓，他的身体展示动作如何与弓展示相互作用，以及雄性是否会根据社会和环境的变化调整弓的外观或求爱展示，知之甚少。这个项目将量化男性展示的女性视角，以解决关于构建行为、多组分的求爱展示、感知和女性选择的新问题。项目目标和方法本项目将通过解决以下问题来增加我们对基于运动的求爱展示及其与扩展表型的互动的理解：1.男性如何建立凉亭？雄性每年都会建造一个新的凉亭，而且凉亭的大小和组成似乎因个体而异。通过量化雄性如何建造和装饰它们的凉亭，我们将调查建筑行为的变化，并更广泛地探索与筑巢行为的相似之处。我们还将使用鲍尔测量和男性显示器的数据来确定不同显示器组件的质量是否存在权衡或积极关联。求爱展示是技能的标志吗？当向雌性展示时，雄性会拿起、摇晃和扔掉各种颜色的物品，中间点缀着它们的粉色徽章。通过从女性的角度从大厅内拍摄男性的展示，并使用无标记物体跟踪软件，我们将量化男性和他展示的物体的运动如何被女性感知，男性在展示中如何变化，以及女性是否更喜欢能产生更熟练或更有力展示的男性。3.随着时间的推移，男性的表现会提高吗？未成熟的雄性花了长达七年的时间学习如何建造碗，而这种物种对展示质量随时间的变化知之甚少。通过量化多年来个别可识别的男性的建筑行为和求爱展示的变化，我们将深入了解求爱行为的发展，并将量化社会和环境因素对展示质量的影响。

Male bowerbirds are famous for their complex courtship displays that incorporate a bower decorated with coloured objects, vocalisations, and vigorous display movements. Male great bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus nuchalis) also use their bowers to create visual tricks that affect the viewing female's perception of the decorations that he presents during display. Despite the variety of signals that males produce when courting females, little is known about how the male constructs his bower, how his physical display movements interact with the bower display, and whether males adjust bower appearance or courtship displays in response to social and environmental changes. This project will quantify the female perspective of male displays to address novel questions about construction behaviour, multi-component courtship displays, perception, and female choice.Project Aims and MethodsThis project will increase our understanding of movement-based courtship displays and their interaction with an extended phenotype by addressing the following questions:1. How do males build bowers? Males build a new bower every year, and bower size and composition appear to vary across individuals. By quantifying how males construct and decorate their bowers, we will investigate variation in building behaviour and explore parallels with nest building behaviour more broadly. We will also use data from bower measurements and male displays to determine whether there are trade-offs or positive associations in the quality of different display components.2. Are courtship displays indicators of skill? When displaying to females, males pick up, shake and toss a variety of coloured objects, interspersed with presentations of their pink crest. By videoing the male's display from the female's point of view from within the bower and using markerless object tracking software, we will quantify how the motion of both the male and the objects he displays are perceived by the female, how males vary in their displays, and whether females prefer males that produce more skilful or vigorous displays. 3. Do males improve their displays over time? Immature males spend up to seven years learning how to build bowers, and changes in display quality over time are poorly understood in this species. By quantifying the changes in building behaviour and courtship displays of individually identifiable males over multiple years, we will gain insights into the development of courtship behaviour, and will quantify the effects that social and environmental factors have on display quality.