Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Publication Title
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Abstract
Many animals communicate by performing elaborate displays that are incredibly extravagant and wildly bizarre. So, how do these displays evolve? One idea is that innate sensory biases arbitrarily favour the emergence of certain display traits over others, leading to the design of an unusual display. Here, we study how physiological factors associated with signal production influence this process, a topic that has received almost no attention. We focus on a tropical frog, whose males compete for access to females by performing an elaborate waving display. Our results show that sex hormones like testosterone regulate specific display gestures that exploit a highly conserved perceptual system, evolved originally to detect 'dangerous' stimuli in the environment. Accordingly, testosterone makes certain gestures likely to appear more perilous to rivals during combat. This suggests that hormone action can interact with effects of sensory bias to create an evolutionary optimum that guides how display exaggeration unfolds.
Keywords
aggression, perceptual bias, signal design, testosterone
Volume
288
Issue
1963
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2021.1848
ISSN
09628452
Rights
© 2021 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society.
Recommended Citation
Anderson, Nigel K.; Grabner, Martina; Mangiamele, Lisa A.; Preininger, Doris; and Fuxjager, Matthew J., "Testosterone Amplifies the Negative Valence of an Agonistic Gestural Display by Exploiting Receiver Perceptual Bias" (2021). Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/bio_facpubs/280
Comments
Archived as published.