Maximizing sexual signal transmission: use of multiple display sites by male houbara bustards
A good location of song or call posts and visual display sites of males is crucial for territory defence and mate attraction. These sites are typically located at prominent positions to ensure an efcient, long-distance sexual advertisement. If the purpose of display sites is to maximize visibility,...
| Autores: | , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2022 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/280676 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/280676 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | African houbara bustard Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae Exploded lek Sexual display Visual signal |
| Sumario: | A good location of song or call posts and visual display sites of males is crucial for territory defence and mate attraction. These sites are typically located at prominent positions to ensure an efcient, long-distance sexual advertisement. If the purpose of display sites is to maximize visibility, a suitable strategy would be to use multiple display sites rather than just one site. We investigated this in the ground-displaying houbara bustard by using two recent technological advances that enabled us collecting high precision data, GSM/GPRS loggers provided with accelerometer and very high-resolution digital elevation models of the terrain. We found that 12 out of 20 marked males used two or three display sites instead of just one as previously assumed in this species. The most used display site had the largest viewshed and use of both alternative sites decreased in proportion to their decreasing viewsheds. The number of display sites was apparently determined by two factors. First, it was correlated with display intensity, suggesting that using multiple display sites may be a mechanism to increase sexual signal transmission in males that are dominant or in better condition. Second, supplementary display sites were not used when the principal display site already provided an excellent view of the surroundings, e.g. when it was located on a hilltop. These results confrmed that the function of secondary display sites is to supplement the viewshed provided by the principal display site, and so maximize sexual signal transmission. |
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