lek, in animal behaviour, communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. Lek behaviour, also called arena behaviour, is found in a number of insects, birds, and mammals. Varying degrees of interaction occur between the males, from virtually none to closely cooperative dancing.
Full Answer
What is lek mating in animals?
Lek mating. A lek, from the Swedish word for "play", is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays, lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners for copulation.
Why do leks stay in the same area?
Successful males congregate in the same area as the previous breeding season because it is familiar to them, while females return to reunite with their males. Females do not return to a mating site if their male partner is not present. Another possible explanation for lek stability is from male hierarchies within a lek.
What is a lekking species?
Lek mating. A lekking species is characterised by male displays, strong female mate choice, and the conferring of male indirect benefits. Although most prevalent among birds such as black grouse, lekking is also found in insects including paper wasps, crustaceans, fishes, amphibians, reptiles and mammals.
What is lek behavior in birds?
lek, in animal behaviour, communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. Lek behaviour, also called arena behaviour, is found in a number of insects, birds, and mammals. Varying degrees of interaction occur between the males, from virtually none to closely cooperative dancing.
What species use leks?
In a few species such as peacocks and black grouse, leks are composed of brothers and half-brothers. The lower-ranking males gain some fitness benefit by passing their genes on through attracting mates for their brothers, since larger leks attract more females.
What is a lek breeding system?
A lek breeding system is employed by some polygynous species and is characterised by aggregations of males that females visit primarily for breeding purposes. This results in strong sexual selection pressures on the lek, as males compete for females and females 'choose' between males.
What is meant by lek polygyny?
Lek polygyny is a mating system common in polygynous species of insects and birds in which the male provides no parental care to its offspring. The lek mating system is uniquely driven by the females' pursuit of their mate, rather than the males'. Males of lekking species do not hunt for receptive females.
What is it called when there is one male and lots of females that he might be able to mate with?
Polygynandry is a mating system in which both males and females have multiple mating partners during a breeding season.
Why are the territories of males so tightly clustered in most lek breeding species?
Lekking males typically defend small aggregated territories. Because these territories do not contain resources attractive to females and there is no paternal care, females are thought to visit leks for the sole purpose of mating (Bradbury, 1981).
What is the most common mating system in mammals?
PolygynyPolygyny. Polygyny is the association of one male with multiple females. This mating system is found in a few birds and insects, but is most common in mammals.
What is female defense polygyny?
Female Defense Polygyny. The Emlen-Oring theory postulates that when females aggregate, males will compete amongst each other for the right to mate with this cluster. This theory is supported by observations made of sheep, gorillas, lizards, and bats.
What is difference between polygamy and polygyny?
Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse simultaneously – from Greek: polys – many, gamos – marriage. Polygyny is the practice of having more than one wife simultaneously – from Greek – polys – many, gyne – woman or wife.
Why are mammals more polygynous than birds?
Polygyny in birds occurs infrequently when compared to mammals, as monogamy is most commonly observed. Evolutionarily speaking, polygyny in birds might have evolved because many females do not require male support to care for their offspring.
What are the 3 types of mating systems?
Three general mating systems, all involving innate as opposed to learned behaviors, are seen in animal populations: monogamous (monogamy), polygynous (polygyny), and polyandrous (polyandry).
What are three types of polygyny?
Three general types of polygynous mating systems occur in mammals: resource defense polygyny, female defense polygyny, and leks.
What is the difference between polygyny and polyandry?
When a man and a woman each have a single spouse we call it monogamy. When a man is concurrently married to two or more women we call it polygyny, and when a woman is concurrently married to two or more men we call it polyandry.
What is the purpose of a lek?
Mammals, reptiles, insects, and fish also have species that lek. A lek is an aggregation of males that gather to engage in competitive displays that may entice visiting females who are surveying prospective partners for copulation (Fiske, P., Rintamaki, P. T. & Karvonen, E.
What is the definition of lek?
: an assembly area where animals (such as the prairie chicken) carry on display and courtship behavior also : an aggregation of animals assembled on a lek for courtship.
What is a lek in biology?
lek, in animal behaviour, communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. Lek behaviour, also called arena behaviour, is found in a number of insects, birds, and mammals.
What is a turkey lek?
Turkeys mate in a system known as an exploded lek, wherein all the males of a given population congregate in one area to display and compete for the breeding rights to most of the females in the area. It's actually similar to a prairie chicken lek, but spread out over a much larger area.
What is a lek?
Lek, in animal behaviour, communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. Lek behaviour, also called arena behaviour, is found in a number of insects, birds, and mammals. Varying degrees of interaction occur between the males, from virtually none to closely cooperative dancing.
Do female leks form lasting bond?
Females visit the lek briefly to select mates and to copulate, but they do not form lasting pair bonds with the males. This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.
What is a lekking parrot?
The males are lekking—dancing and singing their way to an invitation to mate. Halfway around the world, Kakapos—flightless parrots with whiskery sideburns—spend their nights singing. About the size of a housecat, a male Kakapo’s whole body pulses with each tuneless boom of white noise. That’s lekking, too.
What bird parades their plumage and booming air sacs on a lek?
Greater Sage-Grouse parade their plumage and booming air sacs on a lek. Video: K. Theule/USFWS /Flickr CC (BY 2.0)
What do white bearded manakins do?
When they're feeling lekky, White-bearded Manakins gather in groups to snap, crackle, and pop their feathers. Photo: National Geographic Creative/Alamy
Why are lekkings so difficult to track?
During the rest of the year, many lekking species are difficult to track, which means scientists can’t follow individual birds and their reproductive success. As a result, they don’t know which traits attract females to mate with one male over another, or how leks shape populations.
What songbirds lek?
But for these tiny black-and-white songbirds, the go-to move is part dance, part drumroll: They snap, crackle, and pop special feathers on their wings to call females to a cleared forest courtyard.
What do you need to make a lek?
But there are three key ingredients in any lek. First, you need a bunch of birds. Typically, males gather to put on an impressive show to attract a mate, and females wander by to check out their options.
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Lekking species
The term was originally used most commonly for Black Grouse ( orrlek) and for Capercaillie ( tjäderlek ), and lekking behaviour is quite common in birds of this type, such as Sage Grouse, Prairie Chicken, and Sharp-tailed Grouse.
Lekking behavior
There are two types of lekking arrangements: classical and exploded. In the classic lekking system, male territories are in visual and auditory range of their neighbors. In an exploded lek, males are further away from one another than they would be in a classic lek.
Costs and Benefits of Lekking
The main benefit for both sexes is mating success. For males the costs stem from females’ preferences. The traits that are selected for, may be energetically costly to maintain and may cause increased predation. For example, increased vocalization rate caused a decrease in the mass of male Great Snipe.
Female Mating Preferences
A meta analysis of 27 species found that qualities such as lekking size, male display rate, and the rate of male aggression exhibit positive correlation with male success rates. There was also a positive correlation found between attendance, magnitude of exaggerated traits, age, frequencies of fights, and mating success.
The lek paradox
Persistent female choice for particular male trait values should erode genetic variance in male traits and thereby remove the benefits of choice, yet choice persists.
Lek Evolution
There have been several hypotheses proposed as to why males cluster into leks. The hotshot hypothesis is the only model that attributes males as the driving force behind aggregation. The hotshot model hypothesizes that attractive males, known as the “hotshots,” garner both female and male attention.
What is it called when a female has a preference for a trait?
Once females have expressed a preference for a certain trait, a process called runaway selection can occur. The model, first brought to the attention of evolutionary biologists by Ronald Fisher in 1958, suggests that a male trait and the female preference for that trait coevolve. For example, females that prefer to mate with large males should produce large sons as well as daughters that show a preference for large males. Under certain conditions, this process can escalate, producing increasingly exaggerated male traits and stronger female preference for those traits.
Why do males compete for female attention?
And because the availability of eggs is a limiting factor in reproductive success, males tend to compete for female attention and not vice versa. GUPPY BEHAVIOR. Charles Darwin was the first to propose that competition for mates plays an important role in reproductive success--a process he dubbed sexual selection.
Why do guppies copy?
Why copy? Perhaps imitation teaches females what to look for in a male. In an extensive series of experiments on mate-choice copying in guppies, we determined that young females are more likely to copy the mate choice of older, more experienced females than vice versa. Further, copying may save time. Relying on the judgment of others may allow a female to assess a potential mate quickly and efficiently, leaving her more time to forage for food or hide from predators.
Why are female guppies bold?
We hypothesized that boldness exhibited during predator inspection might be attractive to females because it should be a reliable indicator of fitness. Less vigorous guppies who tried to "fake" competence in predator inspection would likely be eaten. By using small, custom-built containers that allowed us to position males at different distances from a predator fish, we found that females indeed preferred the most intrepid males. Such courage appears to correlate with color: the males that swim closest to the predator are usually the most colorful. Thus, in the wild, females may have evolved a preference for the flashier males because color is a proxy for boldness and fitness.
What frogs call loudest?
For example, when given a choice, female green tree frogs (Hyla cinerea) are preferentially attracted to males that call the loudest and most frequently; female guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to the most brightly colored males; and female mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) to males that court them most frequently.
Do sage grouse mate with males?
In certain mating systems, female s may encounter a group of available males and can compare them on the spot. For example, in early spring, male sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) aggregate "cheek-to-jowl" in temporary communal mating arenas called leks, where they strut their stuff for the females.
Is female preference genetically determined?
All these models assume that female preference is genetically determined. Recent studies indicate, however, that social factors, such as imitation, also influence mate choice.
Why do males stay with females?
Females prevent their male partners from mating with other females to increase their fitness level. Males remain with a female to prevent her being fertilized by other males. Males remain with a female to help rear young and thus increase the number of surviving offspring.
What object can elicit the egg-rolling response in geese?
Any round object resembling an egg can elicit the egg-rolling response in geese.
Do large herds intimidate predators?
Large herds tend to be attacked fewer times than a solitary individual. Large herds often intimidate and scare off approaching predators.
Do females come to courting areas?
Females come to courting areas to choose a mate. Males perform displays in specific areas. The flashiest males perform most the matings.