How acoustic signals scale with individual body size: common trends across diverse taxa

Rafael L. Rodríguez, Marcelo Araya-Salas, David A. Gray, Michael S. Reichert, Laurel B. Symes, Matthew R. Wilkins, Rebecca J. Safran and Gerlinde Höbel

Behavioral Ecology, 2015, vol. 26, issue 1, 168-177

Abstract: We use allometric analysis to explore how acoustic signals scale on individual body size and to test hypotheses about the factors shaping relationships between signals and body size. Across case studies spanning birds, crickets, tree crickets, and tree frogs, we find that most signal traits had low coefficients of variation, shallow allometric scalings, and little dispersion around the allometric function. We relate variation in these measures to the shape of mate preferences and the level of condition dependence of signal traits. We find 3 major patterns: 1) signal traits associated with closed mate preferences had lower coefficients of variation and shallower allometries than signal traits with open preferences, 2) signal traits with higher levels of condition dependence had higher coefficients of variation and steeper allometries, and 3) the relationship between condition dependence and allometry varied with preference shape. We find no difference in coefficient of variation or allometry between advertisement and aggressive acoustic signals. Together, our findings suggest 2 main conclusions: 1) most acoustic signals do not appear to have been selected to function as indicators of body size and 2) an interplay between the form of selection and body size–related cost/benefit relationships of trait expression has great potential to explain variation in sexual allometries.

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/aru174 (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:26:y:2015:i:1:p:168-177.

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 ().