It Pays to Have a Wingman

In most courtship displays or leks male birds are competing with one another, attempting to show off and prove their superiority even if they know they are not the strongest or the fittest individual there. It’s pre-programmed for them to face off. This is what was originally theorized when people watched the Lance-Tailed Manakins performing.

Lance Tailed Manakins preforming.

However, this turned out not to be the case. Instead of competing with one another, the two males were actually undergoing an elaborate courtship display in which ones individual is the alpha and the other is the beta. In other words, the alpha bird had a wing-man to help him display and successfully woo females. This was more than a little baffling as the males were not related to one another, and altruism is rare in the animal kingdom and the beta males were willingly cooperating in these dances. So what does the beta male get out of this relationship if he isn’t mating himself?

Emily DuVal (2007) was curious enough to test it, undergoing several experiments which included genetic sampling and typing of birds and offspring, observation studies of the courtship displays, as well as an alpha removal experiment where the alpha male from each courting duet was removed for a time. 

The results were quite interesting. It was hypothesized that the territory (or display site) would eventually be passed from the alpha to the beta, yet the results found that the alpha role was not passed along in a linear fashion as proposed. Instead rather, it was concluded that within the complex social network of these birds the betas may be undergoing a sort of apprenticeship, learning from the alpha so later on they themselves can have a more successful courtship display as alpha. Additionally, the alphas are determined through that same complex social structure she mentions, where the birds that are essentially the best net-workers with the most social connections to other male Manakins are the ones who end up as alpha generally.

The courtship for the Lance Tailed Manakin is still not totally understood, but it is a great example of how not all mating displays are what the initially seem as well as that males can get along when the incentives are good.

Reference

DuVal, EH 2007, ‘Adaptive Advantages of Cooperative Courtship for Subordinate Male Lance‐Tailed Manakins.’, The American Naturalist, vol. 169, no. 4, pp. 423–432.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OQq5P3PLCw