Abstract
Heterospecific sexual behaviour is notable because it should be strongly deterred by natural and sexual selection. Here we report observations of both male and female Ross’s Gulls (Rhodostethia rosea) routinely engaging in sexual displays directed towards other species during the breeding season at a small, remote colony in the Canadian High Arctic. We suggest that in small, reproductively isolated populations, directing stereotyped courtship displays towards heterospecific partners may allow individuals to advertise fitness and experience to both male and female conspecifics and also accelerate hormonal development and readiness to mate during the brief and unpredictable High Arctic breeding season.
Highlights
Heterospecific courtship and mating are expected to be strongly deterred by both natural and sexual selection in free-living populations (Gröning and Hochkirch, 2008), but experiments across various taxa, including insects (Dukas, 2010; Costa-Schmidt and Machado, 2012), fish (Ryan and Wagner, 1987), and birds (Jones and Hunter, 1999), suggest that evolutionary biases in sexual preference can be accidentally or artificially exploited, and the manipulation of ambiguous chemical, morphological, or behavioural triggers can induce heterospecific courtship and even copulation
We hypothesize that the limitations imposed by a brief and unpredictable breeding season at high latitudes may prompt Ross’s Gulls in this small and isolated population to engage in heterospecific sexual display as a means of establishing reproductive dominance and advertising fitness and readiness to mate to conspecifics
We observed 372 pre-breeding courtship displays performed by Ross’s Gulls, 62% of which were directed towards heterospecific partners
Summary
Heterospecific courtship and mating are expected to be strongly deterred by both natural and sexual selection in free-living populations (Gröning and Hochkirch, 2008), but experiments across various taxa, including insects (Dukas, 2010; Costa-Schmidt and Machado, 2012), fish (Ryan and Wagner, 1987), and birds (Jones and Hunter, 1999), suggest that evolutionary biases in sexual preference can be accidentally or artificially exploited, and the manipulation of ambiguous chemical, morphological, or behavioural triggers can induce heterospecific courtship and even copulation. We hypothesize that the limitations imposed by a brief and unpredictable breeding season at high latitudes may prompt Ross’s Gulls in this small and isolated population to engage in heterospecific sexual display as a means of establishing reproductive dominance and advertising fitness and readiness to mate to conspecifics. This behaviour may serve to accelerate hormonal development in individuals rapidly transitioning into breeding condition
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