10.5061/DRYAD.1G1JWSTR6
Nolazco, Sergio
0000-0003-2625-9283
Monash University
Hall, Michelle L.
University of Melbourne
Kingma, Sjouke A.
Wageningen University & Research
Delhey, Kaspar
Monash University
Peters, Anne
Monash University
No evidence for an adaptive role of early molt into breeding plumage in a
female fairy-wren
Dryad
dataset
2019
Alternate plumage
condition-dependence
conventional sex roles
differential allocation hypothesis
mutual ornamentation
2019-12-02T00:00:00Z
2019-12-02T00:00:00Z
en
137417 bytes
4
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
The evolution of ornaments as sexually selected signals is well understood
in males, but female ornamentation remains understudied. Fairy-wrens offer
an excellent model system, given their complex social structure and mating
systems, and the diversity of female ornamentation. We investigated
whether early molt into ornamental breeding plumage plays an adaptive role
in females of the monogamous purple-crowned fairy-wren Malurus coronatus,
the only fairy-wren known to have female seasonal plumage. Using six years
of monitoring, we found that timing of female molt was similar to males,
but there was no evidence for assortative mating. Like males (previous
study), older and dominant individuals acquired their breeding plumage
earlier; however, in contrast to males, early molt did not seem to be
costly since unfavourable environmental conditions or previous
reproductive effort did not delay molt. Early female molt was not
associated with any indicator of reproductive quality nor did it attract
additional offspring care by their partners. We also found no association
between early molt and the likelihood of acquiring a dominant (breeding)
position, or with the presence or proximity to same-sex rivals. Our study
results, that are similar to previous findings in conspecific males,
suggests that directional selection for early molt might be relaxed in
this species, in contrast to other genetically polygamous fairy-wrens in
which early molt predicts extra-pair mating success in males. However, the
finding that molt timing is status-dependent raises the possibility that
other attributes of the ornament may fulfil an adaptive function in
females.
These files include the data needed to reproduce the analyses of our paper
entitled "No evidence for an adaptive role of early molt into
breeding plumage in a female fairy-wren". We also include a readme
document explaining what specific data file was used for each analysis and
a detail explanation of all column headers.