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Courting bird sings with stridulating wing feathers.
Kimberly S Bostwick1, Richard O Prum
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. ksb6@cornell.edu
Science (New York, N.Y.)
|July 30, 2005
Summary
Club-winged Manakins produce unique wing sounds for courtship. This nonvocal song involves feather interactions, mimicking insect stridulation and driving evolutionary changes in their wings.
Area of Science:
- Bioacoustics
- Evolutionary Biology
- Animal Communication
Background:
- Most vertebrate acoustic signals are produced pneumatically via vocal apparatus.
- Courtship displays often involve complex acoustic signals for mate attraction.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe a unique mechanism of tonal acoustic signal production in vertebrates.
- To investigate the role of wing feather interactions in sound production during courtship displays of the Club-winged Manakin.
Main Methods:
- High-speed video recordings of male Club-winged Manakin courtship displays.
- Analysis of feather movements and interactions during sound production.
Main Results:
- Males produce sustained harmonic tones through the interaction of oscillating secondary wing feathers.
- This sound production mechanism exhibits morphological and mechanistic convergence with arthropod stridulation.
- Intersexual selection has driven significant modifications in the wing structure and function for nonvocal song production.
Conclusions:
- The Club-winged Manakin utilizes a novel, nonvocal mechanism for acoustic signaling.
- This unique adaptation highlights the power of sexual selection in shaping complex morphological and functional traits in birds.
- The convergence with arthropod stridulation offers insights into the evolution of sound production across different taxa.
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