Clarice wrote:

>What do you think of Attenbourough's "alternate" theory that the females
are not
selecting for the quality of the male's display, but for the perch, or his
selection of branch
that he has chosen (earned) for his performance?
Were your male manakins banded so that you could identify
individuals? Did your "hot male" command a certain spot in a lek?
Did he stay in one place, or move around to different areas?
>

Good questions! I tend to favor the theory that the females
know a good male when they see one, rather than that they
are going to take the guy on the best perch. What's "best"
about a perch? Well, probably something but a lot more
research is needed.

As for the Long-tailed Manakins, yes they were banded and
could be recognized fairly readily from the blinds where the
observers sat. One year's studly male was "Yukpuk", because
his band color codes were Y/K;P/K (yellow over black on
one leg and pink over black on the other).

The dance perches the manakins used were long (about
12 feet), more or less horizontally draped saplings or woody
vines, maybe 12 to 18 inches off the forest floor. A perch
would be manned by only two males for however long they
lived and reigned: the alpha male and his beta partner. But
often there would be young males hanging around and
kind of getting in the way. I don't remember any of them
having to be run off, though.

To attract females, the pair of males would begin
singing their "toledo" song in perfect unison. It was hard
to tell there was more than one voice. The more practiced
the duo, the more in unison, and - we think - the more
effective at luring females. After a female arrived,
however, the males had to be good dancers also.
They would descend from their treetop singing spots
instantly, as fast as flies, and start cartwheeling along
the perch where the female stood, looking a little
doofus. As one male hopped into the air, the other
scooted under him on the perch, approaching the
female. It took (if I remember) about 6 exchanges of
hop and scoot between the males before they got
close to her, but they might flutter back and repeat
the performance. Then, if nothing had disrupted the
proceedings so far and the female had hung around,
the alpha male got to copulate with her.

McDonald is still trying to figure out what's in it
for the beta male. Just as he had about decided that
the beta gets to take over the perch should the alpha
die or disappear, a relatively young, unpracticed alpha
blew onto the scene and appropriated a perch and
the beta male that went with it. I think this happened
in more than one research season. Also, an alpha
male that had taken a year off (sabbatical?) came
back the next year and tried to regain his perch and
partner, succeeding mainly in screwing things up for
all parties.

Fascinating stuff. I'm sure the dynamics are just
as complicated for the birds as ours are for us.

Chris Maack
Anchorage, AK
CMaack at compuserve.com