Determinantes sociais e espaciais da agregação de machos do Dançarino-de-garganta-branca (Corapipo gutturalis, Aves: Pipridae) em leques na Amazônia Central

Abstract

Sexual selection is a process in which individuals compete to attract reproductive mates. Throughout this process, species have developed different mechanisms and strategies to increase their reproductive success. As we can see in the polygynous lekking mating system, where males aggregate to attract females, the reproductive success among males is quite varied. The individuals in this system are constantly under strong sexual selection. Thus, the costs and benefits of this aggregation have been widely studied in several species with a lek system. Since different results are found depending on the species under study, which shows great diversity and complexity for this system. In this thesis, I investigated social and spatial factors to explain the aggregation of White-throated Manakin (Corapipo gutturalis, Aves: Pipridae) males in leks in a Central Amazonian. For this, I monitored a population of this species, located in the BDFFp, Km 41 Reserve, approximately 80 km from Manaus, Brazil. During three breeding seasons, I captured, banded, collected blood samples, and later observed these individuals in their display court. In the first chapter, I tested the hypotheses of hotshot, which postulates that higher-ranking males attract more females and lower-ranking males, and female preference, where females are attracted to larger leks. I found an association between high-ranking males with the attraction of females and males corroborating the hotshot hypothesis. In addition, I observed a greater visitation of females to the nearest courts, which also indicates a female preference. Thus, we have an association between the hotshot hypothesis and female preference to explain male aggregation. In the second chapter, I added new information to the exhibits that take place on perch above the log display, between 3 and 10m high, these exhibits occurred in four of the seven observed display court. Additionally, I noticed that some males perform stereotyped flights and display elements never recorded for the species or recorded only on log display. From these observations, I tested whether these above-log displays were intended to attract females. However, I found no relationship between the above-log displays and the number of female visits compared to the log displays. So, I argue that these displays are a competition between males to determine who will perform in the log display and/or to compete for the highest ranking. This thesis adds knowledge to the natural history of the species regarding the description of social and spatial organization, and new ways to understand the evolution of leks through male aggregation.