ArticleScientific reports2019
Common cuckoo females may escape male sexual harassment by color polymorphism.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Hypotheses for the Adaptive Maintenance of Phenotypic Polymorphisms.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Ecology and sexual conflict drive the macroevolutionary dynamics of female-limited color polymorphisms in damselflies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Host nest defence does not act as selective agent against plumage polymorphism in brood parasites.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Structural genomic variation and behavioral interactions underpin a balanced sexual mimicry polymorphism.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
- Evolution and genetic architecture of sex-limited polymorphism in cuckoos.Science advances · 2024Article
- Masculinized Sexual Ornaments in Female Lizards Correlate with Ornament-Enhancing Thermoregulatory Behavior.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2022Article
- Female-female aggression and male responses to the two colour morphs of female common cuckoos.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sexual conflict over mating rate is widely regarded as a selective force on the evolution of female-limited color polymorphism in invertebrates, such as damselflies and butterflies. However, evidence confirming its use in higher vertebrates remains limited. The common cuckoo, Cuculus canorus, is an avian brood parasite that does not provide parental care and represents a rare example of female-limited polymorphism in higher vertebrates. Specifically, males exhibit a monomorphic gray morph, while females are either gray or rufous colored, like juveniles. To test a prediction from the hypothesis that the rufous plumage of female cuckoos may help avoid excessive sexual harassment by males (the harassment avoidance hypothesis), we investigate color morph preference in male cuckoos. Mate choice experiments using playbacks of female calls with decoys mimicking both color morphs indicated that the attracted males immediately copulated with decoys without courtship displays, recognizing both color morphs as a sexual partner. However, the males attempted to copulate more frequently and excessively with the gray morph, which is consistent with the prediction from the harassment avoidance hypothesis. We propose that the absence of parental care augments sexual conflict over mating in cuckoos, resulting in the unusual evolution of female-limited polymorphism in this higher vertebrate.
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