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The evolution of social ornamentation

The evolution of flamboyant ornamentation in birds and other species has been a topic of fascination for biologists ever since Darwin. Why do species evolve such conspicuous displays, although those might appear costly to carry or produce ? How come males and females are so different in some species, yet so much alike in others ? Why is there such variation in ornamentation within a species ?

For monomorphic species, the evolution of mutual ornamentation might be explained by the necessity of both sexes to assess the quality of respective partners - and the evolution of ornaments may occur under sexual and social selection pressures. This is a question we have been working on in king penguins, figuring out the physiological determinants of ornamentation in males and females king penguins in order to understand to which extent those are condition dependent, and whether they are used in sexual or social contexts.

penguins here !

We specifically focus on understanding whether ornaments are dynamic signals of individual condition including body condition, oxidative stress, immunity, stress hormones, heart rate and a marker of cellular and organism senescence, i.e. telomere length.

More recently, we have started studying colour ornaments in fish, using similar approaches to unravel what the mechanistic bases and evolutionary function of colour ornaments may be ... 

Our work combines the use of behavioural observations, physiological measures and spectrophotometry to measure the coloration of king penguin ornaments

We are interested in how colour ornaments relate to sexual and social behaviour and what are the multi-directional links between ornamentation, behaviour and physiology: simply put how did ornaments evolve ?

this is what a penguin beak looks like ... it reflects ultraviolet !

portable spectrophotometer to measure colour

fish here !

a selection of related science stuff

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  • Assortative pairing by telomere length in king penguins and relationships with breeding success

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  • Experimental stress during moult suggests the evolution of condition-dependent and condition-independent ornaments in the king penguin

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  • Beak colour dynamically signals changes in fasting status and parasite loads in king penguins

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  • Mutually honest? Physiological ‘qualities’ signaled by color ornaments in monomorphic king penguins

soon

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