Part II: Watch the short YouTube video on South American Club-winged Manakins ww
ID: 275870 • Letter: P
Question
Part II: Watch the short YouTube video on South American Club-winged Manakins
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMetl4ekRIQ
Then, review these resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club-winged_Manakin
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/06/birds-rare-solid-wing-bone-developed-wooing
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/06/08/rsbl.2012.0382.full
1. How would you describe the mating system of club-winged manakins? What is the function of this adaptation?
2. What is unusual about the wing structure of male club-winged manakins?
3. What do you think drives female preference for club wings?
4. If researchers go back to the Andes in a hundred years, what do you expect they will find when they examine male and female club-winged manakins? Clearly justify your expectations.
Explanation / Answer
1) The mating type of club wined manakins exhibit sexual selection where a female bird gets attracted to male bird based on the external characters like wing shaped and color which represents the best characters, phenotype and healthy bird. By selecting the male with best color and wings ensures that the female bird mates with the best bird in the community. This will ensure that the only desirable characters are passed on the next generation and the birds with less wings color are to passed due to next generation or passed in less numbers compared to dominant phenotype birds ensuring the population contains birds with dominant characters.
2) These birds have adapted to characters during course of evolution that it can create buzz sound with their unusual stricter of their wings these sound can attract females. With the modified wings reminges they can create a sound which can be heard by females and attracts the female bird.
3) The buzz sound created by male birds attracts the female birds. The buzz sounds of the birds matches with hat of sound of insects and females birds in search of prey travels to male birds.
4) After hundred years from the bird will evolve with changing climate and habitat conditions if the forest shrink to smaller size the sound making capacity of sound by male bird might be limited and the female bird might be less colorful. The male bird might evolve with colorful plumage to attract the female birds. With shrinking forest the birds will be in close proximity with no need to generating the sound to attract the females.