Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The association between dominance and phenotypic traits (“badges of status”) has been recently questioned, since it has been found to show more variation across populations and time than expected. Using an eleven-year dataset, encompassing more than 1,800 individuals, we studied the association between the size of a melanin-based plumage trait (a black patch under the beak or “bib”), individual attributes (age and sex) and dominance. Our study model, the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius), is a small passerine, which lives year-round in colonies of varying size. Bib sizes were obtained from pictures and automatically pre-processed with an object segmentation deep learning network. We recorded 36,346 dominance-related interactions to estimate dominance hierarchies. We then investigated the effect of sex and age on bib size, and the overall and between-year association of bib size and age with dominance for each sex. We found that bib size increased with age within individuals of both sexes. Age was a strong and consistent predictor of dominance in males, but not in females. Nevertheless, dominance was not correlated with bib size in males and in females. Finally, these relationships did not strongly vary between years. Our results suggest that males and females may use different factors to regulate dominance interactions. Furthermore, our longitudinal dataset allowed us to show that bib size is not a badge of status in our population even though its growth encodes information on age. These results highlight the importance of considering multiple traits over time when studying morphological signaling of dominance hierarchy.
Source: Behavioral Ecology
Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Université de Montpellier, Centre d'Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Universidade do Porto, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Université Paris-Saclay, Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, University of Zurich, University of Cape Town, FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology
Language: English
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: European Commission, Claude Leon Foundation, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Universität Zürich, University of Cape Town, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, H2020 European Research Council, H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Awards: The Ecology of Collective Behaviour, G2509056619, G296847621, Partner choice and the evolution of cooperation, Assessing the role of direct fitness benefits in the evolution of cooperation, Avaliação da importância dos benefícios directos na evolução do comportamento de cooperação, G402356165, G434337789, The evolution of extended phenotypes and associated signals in animals : weaverbirds’ nests and sexual selection as a case study, Partner choice and the evolution of cooperation, G6023785085, G6268741103, G7245225087, Can cooperation be under social or sexual selection? Assessing the reliability of cooperation and examining the direct benefits obtained by co-operators, The role of social behaviour in mate choice, G8514108079, G892694804
OpenAlex ID: W4416686868