This thesis investigates the evolution of two secondary sexual characters in birds, large male body size and exaggerated male tail length. To determine whether the elaboration of these two characters is associated with two correlates of sexual selection intensity, mating system and parental care, I collected and examined morphological information for 1,990 species and natural history data for 745 species. Comparative studies should account for the problem of related species sharing similarities through common descent, so here I investigate associations with contrast scores that measure the variation radiating from unique ancestral nodes in a phylogeny. I show that greater polygyny correlates strongly with increasing male size but only slightly with longer male tail length, and that lesser paternal care correlates strongly with both traits. These results indicate that the evolution of increased male body size and exaggerated male tail length in birds is substantially influenced by the intensity of sexual selection.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.26184 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Winquist, Steven Todd |
| Contributors | Lemon, R. E. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Biology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001397930, proquestno: MM94545, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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