SONG DIVERSITY AND BREEDING SUCCESS IN SOUTHERN HOUSE WRENS (Troglodytes aedon chilensis)

PAULO E LLAMBIAS; EDNEI B DOS SANTOS; DREW RENDALL

Toronto

Congreso; 54th Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society; 2017

Animal Behaviour Society

A sizeable research literature now substantiates Darwin?s instinct that male song, as a trait, has been shaped by processes of Sexual Selection; however, it does not so clearly affirm that extreme forms of song elaboration, or complexity, necessarily represent evolved cues to singer quality relevant in mate competition or mate choice. Here we provide a first comprehensive field investigation of the relationship between male song diversity and breeding success in House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon chilensis), a species recently reported to show quite exaggerated levels of song complexity. During a two-year field study (2012-2014) of a population of southern House Wrens breeding in Mendoza, Argentina, we recorded more than 35,000 songs from 30 males. We tested for correlations between seven metrics of song diversity and four canonical metrics of annual breeding success. Females paired to males that sang with greater diversity bred earlier, laid more eggs and fledged more offspring. We discuss the implications of these findings for male quality signalling and the evolution of song complexity.