Does beak coloration of male blackbirds play a role in intra and/or intersexual selection?

2002

In many bird species, males may show brightly coloured traits and variance in male mating success may be explained by female preference and/or competition between males favouring the most coloured males. Male beak coloration has been suggested to play an important role in the pairing pattern of European blackbirds. Here, we investigate female preference and male-male interactions in relation to male beak coloration in this species. We used a field experiment to measure female and male responses toward stuffed decoys showing either of two beak coloration representing the extremes of the natural variation from yellow to orange. Decoys were situated on the centre of plots and behaviours of mal…