The bright incubate at night: sexual dichromatism and adaptive incubation division in an open-nesting shorebird.

ABSTRACT: Ornamentation of parents poses a high risk for offspring because it reduces cryptic nest defence. Over a century ago, Wallace proposed that sexual dichromatism enhances crypsis of open-nesting females although subsequent studies found that dichromatism per se is not necessarily adaptive. We tested whether reduced female ornamentation in a sexually dichromatic species reduces the risk of clutch depredation and leads to adaptive parental roles in the red-capped plover Charadrius ruficapillus, a species with biparental incubation. Males had significantly brighter and redder head coloration than females. During daytime, when visually foraging predators are active, colour-matched model males incurred a higher risk of clutch depredation than females, whereas at night there was no difference in d

SUBMITTER: Ekanayake KB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4426615 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature