Skip Navigation


Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on September 15, 2008
Behavioral Ecology 2009 20(1):54-59; doi:10.1093/beheco/arn114
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Lay Summary
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
20/1/54    most recent
arn114v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Berglund, A.
Right arrow Articles by Rosenqvist, G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Berglund, A.
Right arrow Articles by Rosenqvist, G.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2008 The Authors This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

An intimidating ornament in a female pipefish

Anders Berglunda and Gunilla Rosenqvistb

a Department of Ecology and Evolution/Animal Ecology, Norbyvägen 18d, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden b Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway

Address correspondence to A. Berglund. E-mail: anders.berglund{at}ebc.uu.se.


  Abstract

A sexually selected signal may serve a dual function being both attractive to mates and deterring rivals. Presently, there are few unambiguous demonstrations of an ornament functioning in both a mate choice and mate competition context and none regarding female ornaments. We have shown earlier that a temporary ornament, a striped pattern, in a sex-role reversed female pipefish, Syngnathus typhle, attracts males. Here we show that this ornament also intimidates rival females: in one experiment a male could interact with either 1 or 2 females. Latency until copulation was longer when 2, rather than 1, females were present. Moreover, when 2 females were present, competition lasted longer and time until mating took place increased when females displayed their ornaments more equally. In another experiment, a focal female could see 1 stimulus female and 1 stimulus male, the latter 2 being unaware of each other. The ornament of the stimulus female was manipulated, either strengthened by being painted black or left unaltered by being sham-painted. As a result, focal females experiencing black-painted stimulus females decreased courtship as well as competitive activities compared with focal females seeing sham-painted females. Moreover, focal females seeing black-painted females displayed less of their own ornament compared with controls. This decrease was due to a decrease in display toward males rather than to stimulus females. Thus, this female ornament indeed has a dual function, attracting mates and deterring rivals. In addition, the social costs invoked by this intimidating effect on rivals may help to maintain signal honesty.

Key words: mating competition, ornament, pipefish, sex-role reversal, status badge, Syngnathus typhle.

Received 25 March 2008; revised 24 July 2008; accepted 6 August 2008.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.