Lek habitat selection by sympatric manakin species in Northwestern Ecuador

Habitat selection plays a fundamental role in determining community structure and species coexistence, although the role played by sexual selection in shaping settlement patterns is less well understood. Manakins (Pipridae) are a Neotropical family of lekking birds that exhibit similar behavioral ecology across species, both in terms of resource use and dependence on elaborate visual signaling for mate attraction, yet they differ in the form of their sexually selected displays and ornaments. We characterized and compared the spatial dispersion and habitat attributes of lek sites for four species of sympatric manakins in the Chocó region of northwestern Ecuador to test two primary hypotheses for lek habitat selection. First, the interspecific hotspot hypothesis predicts that ecologically similar species should position leks in locations where females are likely to be encountered (e.g., resource-rich patches, topographic channels), and thus lek sites of different species should cluster in..., , , # Lek habitat selection by four sympatric manakin species in Northwestern Ecuador

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ncjsxkt4c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ncjsxkt4c)

## Study synopsis

The goal of this study was to gain insight into the mechanisms driving habitat partitioning among sympatric species subject to strong sexual selection. Using a community of manakins in northwestern Ecuador, we tested two competing hypotheses for the factors driving lek habitat selection: (1) the interspecific hotspot hypothesis, which predicts ecologically similar species to establish leks in similar locations due to similar patterns of resource use or female movement among species; and (2) the signal enhancement hypothesis, which predicts species to establish leks in environmentally distinct sites to optimize the production or transmission of species-specific sexual signals.

Similar to a study conducted by Loiselle et al. (2007) in the Ecuadorian Amazon, we found no evidence of spatial clustering of ma...,