Female audience shapes the complexity and syntax of male courtship displays in a lek-mating bird

Courtship displays of lek-mating Golden-winged Manakins (Masius chrysopterus) are context-dependent. Presence or absence of a female audience, and female behavior, more than male identity, determines variation in the constituent elements (repertoire) and ordering (syntax) of displays. We analyzed 422 display videos in three contexts: displays without audiences (SOLO, n = 307), displays for female audiences that did not end in copulation (AUDI, n = 102), and displays ending with copulations (COP, n = 13). Using entropy and a metric we call compressibility (ratio of compressed to uncompressed display strings), we found that ordering of elements (syntax) decreased in complexity from SOLO to AUDI to COP displays. Jaro string distance, a record-linkage metric for assessing string similarity, showed that display string syntax corresponded more to audience context than to performer identity. COP displays of individual males differed more from their own AUDI or SOLO displays than from the COP d..., , , # Female audience shapes the complexity and syntax of male courtship displays in a lek-mating bird

This README.txt file was updated on 16 December 2024 by L.U.T.

## A. Paper associated with this archive

Female audience shapes the complexity and syntax of male courtship displays in a lek-mating bird

## B. Originators

David McDonald, University of Wyoming
Liam Taylor, Bowdoin College
Nicholas Oakley, Missouri Department of Conservation

## C. Contact information

Liam U. Taylor
Department of Biology, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME 04011, United States
[[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

## D. Dates of data collection

2015-2016 (December, June-August)
2017 (September-December)

## E. Geographic Location(s) of data collection

Milpe Bird Sanctuary, Ecuador (~0°1’48” N, 78°57’12” W)

## F. Funding Sources

National Science Foundation GRFP (#DGE1752134) for L.U.T.

#### ACCESS INFORMATION

**1. Licenses/restrictions placed on the data or code**

Dryad data and files: C...