Female blue tits sing frequently: a sex comparison of occurrence, context, and structure of song.

ABSTRACT: In species with mutual mate choice, we should expect adaptive signaling in both sexes. However, the role of female sexual signals is generally understudied. A case in point is female birdsong that has received considerably less attention than male song. This holds even for well-studied species such as the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), an important model in evolutionary ecology. Although there have been anecdotal reports of female song from three populations, there are no quantitative studies on female song in this species. Here, we report systematic sampling from a population of individually marked blue tits over 3 years, revealing that females sang frequently throughout the sampling period. Notably, daytime singing of females occurred in functionally similar contexts as in males

SUBMITTER: Sierro J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9639586 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep-Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature