Animal acoustic communication often takes the form of complex sequences, made up of
multiple distinct acoustic units. Apart from the well‐known example of birdsong, other …

The most commonly heard vocalizations of frogs are advertisement calls, which attract
gravid females and mediate aggressive interactions between males. Frog vocalizations are …

Gull chicks beg for food from their parents. Peacocks spread their tails to attract potential
mates. Meerkats alert family members of the approach of predators. But are these--and other …

Patterns of variation in the acoustic properties of advertisement calls of several species of
treefrogs (family Hylidae) are related to patterns of female preferences for these same …

Secondary sexual characters in many species function both in male-male competition and
as cues for female choice. Based on a literature compilation of existing knowledge of traits …

An important empirical test of the theoretical predictions of sexual selection theory, this book
presents a long-term field study of the monagamous barn swallow. By using information on …

A review of the literature reveals that, if females prefer traits that deviate from the population
mean, they usually prefer traits of greater quantity. In cases in which the sensory bases of …

Behavioral evolution can be influenced by constraints, for example, of phylogeny and
performance. In this paper I describe a pattern in the evolution of birdsongs that may reflect a …

The oscine passerines, or 'songbirds', are one of the few animal taxa in which individuals
learn their vocal signals. Recent comparative studies reveal a remarkable diversity of song …

SUMMARY (i) To find out whether a mating preference could have initially evolved for
adaptive reasons, one must determine whether the preferred trait could have provided …