Extrapair Paternity And The Evolution Of Bird Song, Behav. Ecol. Bookmark and Share

Abstract: Bird song is usually considered to have evolved in the context of sexual selection. Although some intraspecific studies demonstrated a negative link between features of songs and extrapair paternity in own nest, others failed to detect such a relationship. Contrary to expectation, a meta-analysis of all studies revealed no significant intraspecific evidence for songs being associated with extrapair paternity. In addition, in comparative analyses (...) we found that no measures of song complexity and temporal output were significantly related to extrapair paternity interspecifically, even when potentially confounding factors such as social mating system, (...) were held constant.