Sexual Selection and the Barn Swallow
Anders Pape Moller(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 1. May 1994
Book
Hardback
375 pages
978-0-19-854029-8 (ISBN)
Description
The main theme of this study is that sexual selection is important, and affects many aspects of animal life such as mating behaviour, parental care, host-parasite interactions and migration strategies. Birds with extravagant feather ornaments are the standard example of sexual selection. Here, the selective advantages of a long tail are investigated for a common bird, the barn swallow, in the context of sexual selection theory This study constitutes a major empirical text of the theoretical predictions and will be of especial interest to students on behavioural and evolutionary ecology. The first two chapters present a concise review of sexual selection theory and its two main components, male-male competition and female choice. Subsequent chapters investigate the advantage for males of being extravagantly adorned and the advantages that females acquire by being choosy when selecting a mate, using evidence from the author's long-term work on the monogamous barn swallow Moeller explores the roles of behaviour, ecology, morphology, genetics and evolution to provide a synthesis of this work to date. Anders Pape Moeller is co-author (with T.R. Birkhead) of "Sperm Competition in Birds
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
line figures, tables, bibliography
ISBN-13
978-0-19-854029-8 (9780198540298)
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Schweitzer Classification
Content
Models of sexual selection and monogamy; the study organism; male mating advantages; benefits of mate choice; determinants of tail ornament size; advantages of early arrival; options for unmated males; parasites and sexual selection; parental care and male ornamentation; sperm competition and sexual selection; sexual size dimorphism and female ornaments; geographic variation in ornament size; synthesis.