Abstract
Aggressive competition and the signals used during aggressive competition have historically been considered characteristics of male animals produced by sexual selection. Nevertheless, female competitive traits are common across a wide variety of taxa. In most cases, these female traits are understudied. A deeper understanding of how these competitive traits function in female lives is necessary to understand how these traits evolve.
Therefore, the overall aim of this project is to study the costs and benefits of female competitive trait expression (female-female aggressiveness, plumage traits/colouration) within a life history and behavioural syndrome framework, answering to recent calls for an integrative and multivariate approach.
More concretely, while there is increasing evidence that individual differences in the expression of traits that improve competitive ability ("competitive traits"; e.g. aggression, ornaments) might play a major role in life history trade-offs, this has rarely been examined in females. At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that individuals often consistently differ in a whole suite of behavioural traits, known as personality. This highlights that behavioural traits (like aggression) should not be studied in isolation given they might not be able to evolve independently under selection. Understanding the selective forces acting on competitive traits in females hence requires their integration within both a personality and life history framework, which will be done here for the first time.
Using a population of individually-marked free-living blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus; a songbird species), we will use both observational and experimental approaches to quantify a variety of female behaviours (female-female aggression, exploration, nest defence, maternal care) and ornaments (plumage traits) which are expected to influence reproductive fitness and survival. Solid integration within life history will be done by examining the link with life time fitness variation and telomere dynamics, a potential underlying proximate variable. At the end of this project we aim to have generated a better understanding of the costs and benefits associated with different female competitive phenotypes, and hence why they exist and how they are maintained.
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