2018_Mowles et al. - Signal escalation and female choice.pdf (426.01 kB)
Robotic crabs reveal that female fiddler crabs are sensitive to changes in male display rate
journal contribution
posted on 2023-07-26, 14:16 authored by Sophie L. Mowles, Michael Jennions, Patricia R. Y. BackwellMales often produce dynamic, repetitive courtship displays that can be demanding to perform and might advertise male quality to females. A key feature of demanding displays is that they can change in intensity: escalating as a male increases his signalling effort, but de-escalating as a signaller becomes fatigued. Here, we investigated whether female fiddler crabs, Uca mjoebergi, are sensitive to changes in male courtship wave rate. We performed playback experiments using robotic male crabs that had the same mean wave rate, but either escalated, de-escalated or remained constant. Females demonstrated a strong preference for escalating robots, but showed mixed responses to robots that de-escalated (‘fast’ to ‘slow’) compared to those that waved at a constant ‘medium’ rate. These findings demonstrate that females can discern changes in male display rate, and prefer males that escalate, but that females are also sensitive to past display rates indicative of prior vigour.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
14Issue number
1Publication title
Biology LettersISSN
1744-957XExternal DOI
Publisher
Royal SocietyFile version
- Published version
Language
- eng
Official URL
Legacy posted date
2018-02-15Legacy creation date
2018-02-14Legacy Faculty/School/Department
ARCHIVED Faculty of Science & Technology (until September 2018)Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedLicence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC