Mowles Sophie L, Jennions Michael, Backwell Patricia R Y
Animal and Environment Research Group, Faculty of Science and Technology, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK; Evolution, Ecology and Genetics, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.
Evolution, Ecology and Genetics, Research School of Biology , The Australian National University , Canberra, Australian Capital Territory , Australia.
R Soc Open Sci. 2017 Mar 15;4(3):161093. doi: 10.1098/rsos.161093. eCollection 2017 Mar.
Courting males often perform different behavioural displays that demonstrate aspects of their quality. Male fiddler crabs, sp., are well known for their repetitive claw-waving display during courtship. However, in some species, males produce an additional signal by rapidly stridulating their claw, creating a 'drumming' vibrational signal through the substrate as a female approaches, and even continue to drum once inside their burrow. Here, we show that the switch from waving to drumming might provide additional information to the female about the quality of a male, and the properties of his burrow (multiple message hypothesis). Across males there was, however, a strong positive relationship between aspects of their waving and drumming displays, suggesting that drumming adheres to some predictions of the redundant signal hypothesis for multimodal signalling. In field experiments, we show that recent courtship is associated with a significant reduction in male sprint speed, which is commensurate with an oxygen debt. Even so, males that wave and drum more vigorously than their counterparts have a higher sprint speed. Drumming appears to be an energetically costly multimodal display of quality that females should attend to when making their mate choice decisions.
求偶的雄性动物常常会表现出不同的行为展示，以展现自身素质的各个方面。雄性招潮蟹（学名：Uca sp.）在求偶期间反复挥舞爪子的行为展示十分出名。然而，在某些物种中，雄性会通过快速摩擦爪子发出额外信号，在雌性靠近时通过基质产生一种“鼓声”振动信号，甚至在进入洞穴后仍继续发出鼓声。在此，我们表明从挥舞爪子到发出鼓声的转变可能会向雌性提供有关雄性素质及其洞穴属性的额外信息（多重信息假说）。然而，在所有雄性中，它们挥舞爪子和发出鼓声的展示之间存在很强的正相关关系，这表明发出鼓声符合多模态信号冗余信号假说的一些预测。在野外实验中，我们表明近期求偶与雄性冲刺速度的显著降低有关，这与氧债相符。即便如此，比同类更有力地挥舞爪子和发出鼓声的雄性具有更高的冲刺速度。发出鼓声似乎是一种能量消耗大的多模态素质展示，雌性在做出配偶选择决定时应该予以关注。
