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Leks are characterized as clusters of displaying males that females visit primarily for the purpose of mating, and represent complex mating systems observed across various species, including birds, mammals, and insects. Male wild turkeys ( Meleagris gallopavo ) use reproductive strategies that involve visual and acoustic displays to compete for mates. However, there is ambiguity as to whether the mating system of eastern wild turkeys ( M. g. silvestris ) is a form of lekking. Our objective was to evaluate the potential that eastern wild turkeys use a form of a lek mating system via a movement based recursive analysis to identify if areas were revisited by males during the breeding season, and whether selection of revisited areas was related to resources or female distribution. Using GPS locations collected from 151 male and 261 female wild turkeys from 2014 to 2023 across the southeastern United States, we identified 6,565 locations that occurred within revisited areas during the breeding season and examined resource selection by males at those revisited areas. We found that average size of revisited areas was 49.89 ha and comprised approximately 8.12% of male breeding season home ranges. Male wild turkeys traveled greater distances from their winter home ranges to revisited areas, than did females from their winter home ranges to pre-laying ranges. Male wild turkeys selected revisited areas that were closer to hardwood forests and open areas. Additionally, we found that selection of revisited areas was positively associated with an increase in the relative probability of female presence and visibility of males. We encourage research to further elucidate the dynamics of wild turkey mating behaviors relative to potential forms of lekking that wild turkeys may use throughout their geographic range.

Understanding why females prefer exaggerated male mating displays, when males offer little more than sperm in lek mating systems, has been an important challenge in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. The Hamilton-Zuk hypothesis proposes that the expression of mating displays is limited by parasitism and females choose parasite-resistant males that can produce costly, exaggerated displays. We used Pacific treefrogs (Pseudacris regilla) and natural infections by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), to test predictions of the Hamilton-Zuk hypothesis. Specifically, we predicted that (i) call properties, especially those that are more likely under selection by female choice, correlate with parasitic infection, and (ii) females discriminate against highly infected males based on the properties of their mating call. We found that energetically costly call properties that are likely under selection by female choice, like call rate and call effort, were not influenced by Bd infection. However, males with high levels of Bd infection produced calls with faster pulse rates than males with lower levels of infection. In two-choice tests, females did not show a preference between calls that resemble males with either high or low levels of Bd infection. Our results provide little support for the Hamilton-Zuk hypothesis and suggest that Bd infection may have little effect on female choice in natural settings. We discuss our results in terms of the effects of Bd and other parasites in anuran mating behavior.Significance statementThis study shows that infection by a fungal pathogen responsible for world-wide amphibian loss may influence the expression of male mating displays in Pacific treefrogs. Importantly, we also show that females do not discriminate against mating calls typical of highly infected males. These results suggest that asymptomatic levels of infection may have little effect on mating behavior in natural settings. Furthermore, our study offers little support for the influential hypothesis that parasitism limits the expression of mating displays and females choose parasite-resistant males that can produce exaggerated displays.

As wind energy development expands across the Great Plains, there is potential to adversely affect species that require undisturbed tracts of native grasslands, such as the lesser prairie-chicken Tympanuchus pallidicinctus. Effects of wind development on lesser prairie-chicken (LEPC) movement and demographic rates have been minimal when turbines are sited in cultivated cropland and grassland habitats are available nearby, but there are gaps in the overall understanding of how LEPC populations will respond to wind energy development over the long term. Reducing these knowledge gaps and improving our decision-making process is key to balancing the needs of the wind energy industry and conservation of the species. We evaluated trends in LEPC lek attendance and persistence following construction of the Cimarron Bend Wind Resource Area (CBWRA) in southern Kansas, USA, from 2017 to 2024. We used Bayesian generalized linear regression models to evaluate lek stability and the probability of lek abandonment with various environmental and anthropogenic covariates. We modeled total lek attendance with years since facility construction as a predictor. Of the 37 leks included in analysis, we found leks located in areas with relatively higher density of turbines and had lower annual attendance were less stable, and leks located in areas with relatively higher grass cover were less likely to be abandoned over our eight years of monitoring. However, these effects did not seem to negatively impact the local LEPC population at CBWRA, given that the total lek attendance had a positive trend across the 8-year study, providing additional support that siting turbines in cultivated croplands and conserving large intact tracts of grasslands appear to be important minimization measures for LEPC. Regardless, it remains to be seen how LEPC would be impacted by wind energy development in intact grassland-dominated landscapes (i.e. core habitat).

Male mating harassment may occur when females and males do not have the same mating objectives. Communal animals need to manage the costs of male mating harassment. Here, we demonstrate how desert locusts in dense populations reduce such conflicts through behaviors. In transient populations (of solitarious morphology but gregarious behavior), we found that nongravid females occupied separate sites far from males and were not mating, whereas males aggregated on open ground (leks), waiting for gravid females to enter the lekking sites. Once a male mounted a gravid female, no other males attacked the pair; mating pairs were thereby protected during the vulnerable time of oviposition. In comparison, solitarious locusts displayed a balanced sex ratio in low-density populations, and females mated irrespective of their ovarian state. Our results indicate that the mating behaviors of desert locusts are density dependent and that sex-biased behavioral group separation may minimize the costs of male mating harassment and competition.

Mating systems, influenced by the social and ecological environment and individual attributes, are fundamental components of animal social organisation, impacting behaviour, animal distribution, ecosystem processes, individual reproductive success, and population dynamics. Bats are of particular interest for studies of mating systems as they are thought to exhibit a greater diversity in mating systems than any other mammalian order, and thus make great models for improving our fundamental understanding of causes and consequences of social organisation. Here, we review the current knowledge of bat mating systems. Our analyses show that research on bat mating systems has not kept pace with research on bats in general and that traditional typologies do not accommodate the mating system of several species. Therefore, we propose an alternative, functional framework to categorise mating systems of bats and by extension of other taxa. We argue that mating systems can be classified according to a male reproductive skew continuum, with an increasing skew from monogamy to true lekking. We include an additional category of lek‐like mating system along the continuum to account for previous trans‐categorical cases that have the appearance of resource defence but are functionally akin to a lek. The new framework has a total of seven categories: promiscuity, monogamy, female defence polygyny, resource defence polygyny, a lek‐like mating system, exploded classical lek, and clustered classical lek. Applying this framework to bats reveals that lek mating systems are more prevalent in bats than previously recognised. It is our aim that this review and the proposed framework provide a greater understanding of bat mating systems particularly and provoke research into the factors that shape mating systems across animal taxa more generally. Mating systems play crucial roles in behaviour, distribution, reproductive success, and population dynamics. Bats, known for their diverse mating systems, offer valuable insights into understanding the causes and effects of social organisation, yet research in this area lags behind broader bat studies. To address this gap and provoke further research, a new functional framework is proposed to classify bat mating systems, revealing a higher prevalence of lek mating systems than previously acknowledged.

Sexual selection is an intense evolutionary force, which operates through competition for the access to breeding resources. There are many cases where male copulatory success is highly asymmetric, and few males are able to sire most females. Two main hypotheses were proposed to explain this asymmetry: \"female choice\" and \"male dominance\". The literature reports contrasting results. This variability may reflect actual differences among studied populations, but it may also be generated by methodological differences and statistical shortcomings in data analysis. A review of the statistical methods used so far in lek studies, shows a prevalence of Linear Models (LM) and Generalized Linear Models (GLM) which may be affected by problems in inferring cause-effect relationships; multi-collinearity among explanatory variables and erroneous handling of non-normal and non-continuous distributions of the response variable. In lek breeding, selective pressure is maximal, because large numbers of males and females congregate in small arenas. We used a dataset on lekking fallow deer (Dama dama), to contrast the methods and procedures employed so far, and we propose a novel approach based on Generalized Structural Equations Models (GSEMs). GSEMs combine the power and flexibility of both SEM and GLM in a unified modeling framework. We showed that LMs fail to identify several important predictors of male copulatory success and yields very imprecise parameter estimates. Minor variations in data transformation yield wide changes in results and the method appears unreliable. GLMs improved the analysis, but GSEMs provided better results, because the use of latent variables decreases the impact of measurement errors. Using GSEMs, we were able to test contrasting hypotheses and calculate both direct and indirect effects, and we reached a high precision of the estimates, which implies a high predictive ability. In synthesis, we recommend the use of GSEMs in studies on lekking behaviour, and we provide guidelines to implement these models.

1. Integrated visual displays that combine gesture with colour are nearly ubiquitous in the animal world, where they are shaped by sexual selection for their role in courtship and competition. However, few studies assess how multiple selection regimens operate on different components of these complex phenotypes on a macroevolutionary scale. 2. Here, we study this issue by assessing how both sexual and ecological selection work together to influence visual display complexity in the birds of paradise. 3. We first find that sexual dichromatism is highest in lekking species, which undergo more intense sexual selection by female choice, than non-lekking species. At the same time, species in which males directly compete with one another at communal display courts have more carotenoid-based ornaments and fewer melanin ornaments. 4. Meanwhile, display habitat influences gestural complexity. Species that dance in the cluttered understorey have more complex dances than canopy-displaying species. 5. Taken together, our results illustrate how distinct selection regimens each operate on individual elements comprising a complex display. This supports a modular model of display evolution, wherein the ultimate integrated display is the product of synergy between multiple factors that select for different types of phenotypic complexity.

Chromosomal inversions frequently underlie major phenotypic variation maintained by divergent selection within and between sexes. Here we examine whether and how intralocus conflicts contribute to balancing selection stabilizing an autosomal inversion polymorphism in the ruff Calidris pugnax . In this lekking shorebird, three male mating morphs (Independents, Satellites and Faeders) are controlled by an inversion-based supergene. We show that in a captive population, Faeder females, who are smaller and whose inversion haplotype has not undergone recombination, have lower average reproductive success in terms of laying rate, egg size, and offspring survival than Independent females, who lack the inversion. Satellite females, who carry a recombined inversion haplotype and have intermediate body size, more closely resemble Independent than Faeder females in reproductive performance. We inferred that the lower reproductive output of Faeder females is most likely balanced by higher than average reproductive success of individual Faeder males. These findings suggest that intralocus conflicts may play a major role in the evolution and maintenance of supergene variants. ‘A supergene that underlies variation in male mating phenotypes has consequences for female reproduction. Here, the authors use evolutionary models to show that the rarest variant of this supergene is maintained by disproportionally high male reproductive success.’

Centurio senex is an iconic bat characterized by a facial morphology deviating far from all other New World Leaf Nosed Bats (Phyllostomidae). The species has a bizarrely wrinkled face and lacks the characteristic nose leaf. Throughout its distribution from Mexico to Northern South America the species is most of the time rarely captured and only scarce information on its behavior and natural history is available. Centurio senex is frugivorous and one of the few bats documented to consume also hard seeds. Interestingly, the species shows a distinct sexual dimorphism: Adult males have more pronounced facial wrinkles than females and a fold of skin under the chin that can be raised in style of a face mask. We report the first observations on echolocation and mating behavior of Centurio senex , including synchronized audio and video recordings from an aggregation of males in Costa Rica. Over a period of 6 weeks we located a total of 53 perches, where during the first half of the night males were hanging with raised facial masks at a mean height of 2.35 m. Most of the time, the males moved just their wing tips, and spontaneously vocalized in the ultrasound range. Approaches of other individuals resulted in the perching male beating its wings and emitting a very loud, low frequency whistling call. Following such an encounter we recorded a copulation event. The observed aggregation of adult C . senex males is consistent with lek courtship, a behavior described from only few other bat species.

Most species-climate models relate range margins to long-term mean climate but lack mechanistic understanding of the ecological or demographic processes underlying the climate response. We examined the case of a climatically limited edge-of-range population of a medium-sized grassland bird, for which climate responses may involve a behavioural trade-off between temperature stress and reproduction. We hypothesised that temperature will be a limiting factor for the conspicuous, male snort-call display behaviour, and high temperatures would reduce the display activity of male birds. Using remote tracking technology with tri-axial accelerometers we classified and studied the display behaviour of 17 free-ranging male little bustards, Tetrax tetrax, at 5 sites in the Iberian Peninsula. Display behaviour was related to temperature using two classes of Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs) at different temporal resolutions. GAMMs showed that temperature, time of the day and Julian date explained variation in display behaviour within the day, with birds snort-calling significantly less during higher temperatures. We also showed that variation in daily snort-call activity was related to average daytime temperatures, with our model predicting an average decrease in daytime snort-call display activity of up to 10.4% for the temperature increases projected by 2100 in this region due to global warming. For lekking birds and mammals undertaking energetically-costly displays in a warming climate, reduced display behaviour could impact inter- and intra-sex mating behaviour interactions through sexual selection and mate choice mechanisms, with possible consequences on mating and reproductive success. The study provides a reproducible example for how accelerometer data can be used to answer research questions with important conservation inferences related to the impacts of climate change on a range of taxonomic groups.