Barney Schlinger: UCLA

Manakins are a clade of extraordinary neotropical birds. In many species, the brightly–colored males are polygynous, performing no parental care duties, but they gather into leks for courtship. Over the past 20 years, my lab has performed detailed behavioral studies of golden-collared manakins (Manacus vitellinus) of Panamanian rainforests. These males clear display courts (by moving debris more than double their own body weight) where they perform elaborate, athletic courtship dances that are visually stunning, especially when viewed in slow motion. As part of court defense and courtship, males produce explosive snapping sounds by powerfully and rapidly throwing their wings together so their wrists collide over their heads. We find that females prefer to copulate with those males whose displays are quick and accurate and noisy. Anatomical (skeletal and musculature) and physiological (neural and endocrine and cardiovascular) studies show that males have evolved a variety of specializations that enable these extreme behavioral phenotypes. I describe a subset of this body of work in the context of mate choice theory, the evolution of communication and the value of perceiving the gestalt of a single organism.