Song functions for joint territory defence and within-pair communication in female and male lovely fairy-wrens

Abstract

Song has been extensively studied in birds and is considered a classic example of a sexually selected trait. However, this interpretation is based predominantly on studies of males. There is growing evidence that female song is common and phylogenetically widespread, but there are still relatively few species for which song similarities and differences between the sexes have been described. We investigated the function of female and male song in the lovely fairy-wren, Malurus amabilis, a tropical species that maintains territories year-round. We tested whether song structure and sex-specific seasonal variation in song rates across breeding and nonbreeding stages were consistent with expectat..