Songs are complex acoustic signals produced mainly during the mating season. Such
signals are found in many taxa but are most typical of birds, frogs, and insects. Darwin (38) …

The nutritional stress hypothesis explains how learned features of song, such as complexity
and local dialect structure, can serve as indicators of male quality of interest to females in …

Gull chicks beg for food from their parents. Peacocks spread their tails to attract potential
mates. Meerkats alert family members of the approach of predators. But are these--and other …

A review of the literature reveals that, if females prefer traits that deviate from the population
mean, they usually prefer traits of greater quantity. In cases in which the sensory bases of …

Song learning is a cognitive task in which juvenile birds acquire, store and use information
about adult song to shape their own song production. Comparative studies show that across …

Wolves excitedly greet each other as members of the pack come together; a bumble bee
uses its long tongue to reach the nectar at the base of a foxglove flower; a mongoose swiftly …

Sexual selection by female choice is a process involving communication. The male is the
sender and his courtship display is the signal, whereas the female is the receiver, with both …

Male bird song may attract and stimulate females and may repel males, but the evidence
that song is essential for accomplishing these “main functions” is not abundant. Correlations …

No single theory so far proposed gives a wholly satisfactory account of the origin and
maintenance of bird-song dialects. This failure is the consequence of a weak comparative …

The swordtail Xiphophorus nigrensis exhibits three relatively discrete male body-size
classes that derive from allelic variation at the Y-linked pituitary (P) locus. Previous studies …