Assessing the trade-off between color and song investment in a passerine group of complex signals

LIJTMAER, DARÍO A.; CASALE, AGUSTÍN I.; TUBARO, PABLO L.

Congreso; 2020 Animal Behavior Society Virtual Conference; 2020

Animal Behavior Society

The interaction between multiple secondary sexual characters simultaneously expressed by an organism is one of the less understood aspects of sexual selection. In fact, the correlation across species in the complexity of simultaneously expressed signals has been found to be positive, negative or absent in different avian groups. In this context, we analyzed the interaction between color complexity and song elaboration in the passerine family Fringillidae (finches). We used a two-scale approach and studied this association both at the family level, by comparing the songs between the species with the most and the least complex color in each genus, and within the genus Crithagra. At both scales, we analyzed the association between color complexity and three aspects of vocal elaboration: energy investment, song complexity and vocal performance. We found an absence of association between the complexity of coloration and song elaboration at both scales. Our analysis also indicates that finches can have a remarkable vocal performance. Taken together, our results suggest that visual and acoustic signals in this family could have different roles in the context of sexual selection.