Elements of male song performance and complexity are associated with reduced risk of paternity loss in a South American passerine

Many passerines have elaborated songs hypothesized to have evolved through sexual selection. Extra-pair mating can be a contributing factor in the evolution of complex songs by increasing the variance in male fitness. We investigated this by quantifying the relationship between male song performance and complexity and levels of paternity loss through extra-pair mating by their female mates in the Grass Wren (Cistothorus platensis), a socially monogamous passerine with elaborate songs. We conducted fieldwork in the Uspallata Valley, Mendoza, Argentina, over two breeding seasons and recorded the songs of 30 focal males during the egg-laying stage of their social mate. We collected blood samples from adults and nestlings and used ddRAD sequencing SNP data to determine parentage. We assessed extra-pair mating behaviour of females by measuring paternity loss of their social partner and examined whether variation in paternity loss was associated with structural characteristics of that male’s ..., , # Elements of male song performance and complexity are associated with reduced risk of paternity loss in a South American passerine

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.zcrjdfnqz](10.5061/dryad.zcrjdfnqz)

## Description of the data and file structure

GENERAL INFORMATION

Title of Dataset: Elements of male song performance and complexity are associated with reduced risk of paternity loss in a South American passerine

Date of data collection: October to February 2016-2017

Geographic location of data collection: Uspallata, Mendoza, Argentina

### Files and variables

#### File: data\_1\_ESM.csv

**Description:** Structural song measurements and EPP measurements for each male

##### Variables

* id_male: The leg band combination of male
* number_male: The number of the aluminum leg band
* year: Breeding season 2016 or 2017
* male_year: Concatenation between male and breeding season
* id_nest: Identification of studied nest
* delta_time: Song duration (s) Difference between Begin time and End Ti...,