BLUE AND GREEN EGG‐COLOR INTENSITY IS ASSOCIATED WITH PARENTAL: EFFORT AND MATING SYSTEM IN PASSERINES: SUPPORT FOR: THE SEXUAL SELECTION HYPOTHESIS.

Abstract:

Among several adaptive explanations proposed to account for variation in avian egg color, that related to sexual selection is of particular interest because of its possible generality. Briefly, it proposes that because biliverdin (the pigment responsible for blue‐green eggshell coloration) is an antioxidant, deposition in the eggshell by laying females may signal the capacity of females to control free radicals, despite the handicap of removing this antioxidant from their body. If males adjust parental effort in response to the intensity of the blue coloration of eggs, thereby investing more in the offspring of high‐quality mates, blue eggs may represent a postmating sexually selected signal in females. Here, by image and spectrophotometric analyses of the eggs of European passerines, we tested two different pbkp_redictions of the hypothesis. First, variables related to intraspecific variation in parental effort (i.e., the duration of …

Año de publicación:

2005

Keywords:

Fuente:

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