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Evolution of correlated complexity in the radically different courtship signals of birds-of-paradise
Animals frequently vary widely in ornamentation, even among closely related species. Understanding the patterns that underlie this variation is a significant challenge, requiring comparisons among drastically different traits—like comparing apples to oranges. Here, Ligon et al. use novel analytical approaches to quantify variation in ornamental diversity and richness across the wildly divergent birds-of-paradise, a textbook example of how sexual selection can profoundly shape organismal phenotypes. They find that color and acoustic complexity, along with behavior and acoustic complexity, are positively correlated across evolutionary timescales. Positive links among ornament classes suggests that selection is acting on correlated suites of traits—a composite courtship phenotype—and this integration may be partially responsible for the extreme variation in signal form that we see in birds-of-paradise. The image shows a Wilson’s bird of paradise, one of the 40 species studied here, photographed in the wild.
Image Credit: Tim Laman
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