Song Repertoire Size and Male Quality in Song Sparrows

Abstract

Female Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia) perform more cour ship display in response to large repertoires of song types than in response t small repertoires. This preferential response to large repertoires might be due a positive correlation between repertoire size and male quality; therefore, fema might benefit by responding more strongly to males singing many song types. tested for such a correlation, using several measures of male quality. We foun no evidence that repertoire size is related to male age, dominance status withi captive flocks, territory size, date on which males settle on their territories, wi length, or weight. We suggest that adaptive explanations for the evolution of preference for large repertoires in this species are unsupported, and that thi preference may be a phyletic holdover. One