Plumage color manipulation has no effect on social dominance or fitness in zebra finches

Sofia Jerónimo, Mehdi Khadraoui, Daiping Wang, Katrin Martin, John A Lesku, Kylie A Robert, Emmi Schlicht, Wolfgang Forstmeier, Bart Kempenaers and Naomi LangmoreHandling Editor

Behavioral Ecology, 2018, vol. 29, issue 2, 459-467

Abstract: Many species of birds have evolved a colorful plumage, and such ornamentation is thought to play a role in mate choice and in social dominance interactions. Here, we study captive zebra finches that breed in communal aviaries. In each aviary, we manipulated, using a black dye, parts of the plumage of some of the individuals. As a counter to our expectations, we observed that artificially painted individuals reached the same social dominance and reproductive success as the nonmanipulated majority of birds.

Keywords: color polymorphism; color mutation; mate choice; male–male competition; rare-mate disadvantage; sexual dichromatism; species recognition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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