Why does the complexity of functionally equivalent signals vary across closely related species?

Multiple receivers, multiple ornaments, and a trade-off between agonistic and epigamic signaling in a widowbird

Claire M V Nelson, William B Sherwin and Terry J Ord

Behavioral Ecology, 2022, vol. 33, issue 5, 926-936

Abstract: Animal signals are observed to vary widely in complexity among species, but why this should be the case—especially among closely related taxa—is unclear. Identifying the selective forces that drive these differences is important for understanding signal evolution, as well as the origins of communication more generally. We used a measure derived from information theory to quantify the complexity of visual territorial advertisement displays performed by males of closely related taxa of Puerto Rican Anolis lizard. In general, the information potential of visual displays appeared to be high compared with signals of other taxonomic groups (e.g., other lizards, birds). Nevertheless, there was still considerable variation in signal complexity among the Anolis taxa studied. We found a strong relationship between signal complexity and phylogeny for some aspects of the advertisement display traditionally thought to be important in species recognition. Other aspects of the display tended to vary independently of phylogeny, with differences in signal complexity among taxa reflecting the distance over which displays were typically viewed by territorial neighbors, and to some extent the number of sympatric congeners present in the environment. More generally, we highlight a little used, but tractable means of quantifying complexity in different species—and in different aspects of the same signal (the number, timing, and type of components)—that can reveal the evolutionary processes generating increases (or decreases) in communicative complexity.

Keywords: color; ornament; Shannon–Wiener index; social complexity; territoriality; visual signal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arac050 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:33:y:2022:i:5:p:926-936.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().