Abstract
Conspicuous male signals often play an important role in both attracting mates and deterring rivals. In territorial species with extrapair mating, female and male forays to other territories may be an important component underlying female choice and male mating success and might be influenced by male advertisement signals. Yet, whether off-territory foraying is associated with male signals is still not well understood. Here, we tested how female and male forays are associated with short-range visual and long-range acoustic signals (dawn song). We used an automated radio tracking system to follow the movements of wild great tits (Parus major) to other territories in relation to male dawn song, plumage ornaments, and extrapair paternity. We show that both sexes frequently forayed into others’ territories throughout the breeding period. Movements of both males and females were associated with male song but not with plumage ornaments. Contrary to our expectations, females stayed away from territories where males sang elaborately, whereas males were attracted to those territories. Moreover, neither female nor male forays were associated with the occurrence of extrapair offspring. Our results, thus, suggest that, although forays into other territories are associated with male dawn song, females may not be attracted and males not repelled by dawn song. This sheds a different light on the sex-specific effects of male advertisement signals, expanding the view on the selection pressures shaping such communication systems.
Highlights
The conspicuous signals of males in many animal species often serve a dual function in both intersexual selection and intrasexual competition (Berglund et al 1996)
Evidence from radio tracking (Kleven et al 2006) and from monitored visits to other nest-boxes recorded with pit tags (Schlicht et al 2015) shows that male foraying effort predicts the occurrence of extrapair offspring and is correlated with success in obtaining extrapair fertilizations
Because our results showed that males make the longest forays early in the morning, we subsequently tested for a relationship between dawn song characteristics (PC1 and PC2) and duration of male forays early in the morning
Summary
The conspicuous signals of males in many animal species often serve a dual function in both intersexual selection and intrasexual competition (Berglund et al 1996). (“extraterritorial foray”) in order to search for potential extrapair mates (Kempenaers et al 1992; Schlicht et al 2015), the behavioral response to male singing is still not well understood (Bircher and Naguib 2020) Both females and males have been shown to engage in extraterritorial foraying (Neudorf et al 1997; Kleven et al 2006; Akçay et al 2012; Celis-Murillo et al 2017). Most studies on foraying behavior have focused on either males or females, were restricted due to time consuming behavioral observations and manual radio tracking, or did not include both acoustic and visual traits that may play a role in prospecting behavior
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