IRFP: Sexual Conflict in a Tropical Bird: The Evaluation of a Unique Mating System

Maddox Joseph, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twenty-four-month research fellowship by Dr. J. Dylan Maddox to work with Drs. Juan Carlos Castro and Roberto Pezo at the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana in Iquitos, Peru. The evolutionary interests of males and females are frequently in conflict. Perhaps nowhere is this better illustrated than in species that are sexually size dimorphic in which dominant males can control mating opportunities simply due to their size and strength advantages over females. In these taxa, males are thought to "win" bouts of mating conflict, and thus many studies focus only on the mechanisms that determine male dominance. There is mounting evidence, however, that females may have far more latitude for exerting mate choice than has been previously recognized, which suggests that studies also need to determine the traits selected by females that circumvent the reproductive benefits of male dominance. This project investigates mating conflict by studying both the determinants of male dominance and female mate-choice in a colonial tropical bird species: the yellow-rumped cacique (Cacicus cela). Using a combination of experimental manipulations, behavioral observations, and molecular and genetic analyses, this project will yield important insights into how female choice and male dominance interact in a system that has traditionally been viewed as male-controlled. Apart from the intellectual merit, this fellowship will also forge new collaborations between the PI and Latin American scientists.