Skip to content
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Sexual selection predicts advancement of avian spring migration in response to climate change
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume 273, No. 1605, Year 2006
Notification
URL copied to clipboard!
Description
Global warming has led to earlier spring arrival of migratory birds, but the extent of this advancement varies greatly among species, and it remains uncertain to what degree these changes are phenotypically plastic responses or microevolutionary adaptations to changing environmental conditions. We suggest that sexual selection could help to understand this variation, since early spring arrival of males is favoured by female choice. Climate change could weaken the strength of natural selection opposing sexual selection for early migration, which would predict greatest advancement in species with stronger female choice. We test this hypothesis comparatively by investigating the degree of long-term change in spring passage at two ringing stations in northern Europe in relation to a synthetic estimate of the strength of female choice, composed of degree of extra-pair paternity, relative testes size and degree of sexually dichromatic plumage colouration. We found that species with a stronger index of sexual selection have indeed advanced their date of spring passage to a greater extent. This relationship was stronger for the changes in the median passage date of the whole population than for changes in the timing of first-arriving individuals, suggesting that selection has not only acted on protandrous males. These results suggest that sexual selection may have an impact on the responses of organisms to climate change, and knowledge of a species' mating system might help to inform attempts at predicting these. © 2006 The Royal Society.
Available Materials
https://efashare.b-cdn.net/share/pmc/articles/PMC1679901/bin/rspb20063688s01.pdf
https://efashare.b-cdn.net/share/pmc/articles/PMC1679901/bin/rspb20063688s02.pdf
https://efashare.b-cdn.net/share/pmc/articles/PMC1679901/bin/rspb20063688s03.pdf
Authors & Co-Authors
Spottiswoode, Claire N.
United Kingdom, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
South Africa, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Tøttrup, Anders P.
Denmark, Copenhagen
Københavns Universitet
Coppack, Timothy
Germany, Wilhelmshaven
Institut Für Vogelforschung Vogelwarte Helgoland Ifv
Statistics
Citations: 80
Authors: 3
Affiliations: 4
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1098/rspb.2006.3688
ISSN:
09628452
Research Areas
Environmental
Sexual And Reproductive Health
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study
Participants Gender
Female