Bowerbird species are divergent in bower canopy structure, hence display lighting
Endler, John A. (2025) Bowerbird species are divergent in bower canopy structure, hence display lighting. Emu: austral ornithology, 125 (4). pp. 343-357.
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Abstract
Male Bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae) build bowers, which are only used for attracting and mating with females. All bowers are built under a vegetation canopy, but canopy structure appears to vary among species. Canopy structure affects light quality and mating display visual contrast, hence it is worth investigating. Hemispherical camera photography was used to record canopy structure over active bowers, abandoned bowers and control sites for 7 Australian species. Different species showed significantly different patterns of canopy gaps, and sympatric species were more different than allopatric species. The differences between active, abandoned and control sites in the same vegetation strongly suggest active and continuous microhabitat choice. Differences among sympatric and allopatric rainforest species suggest a character displacement pattern. The results suggest that the vegetation geometry can affect where a species chooses to live and reproduce, and could apply to other species.
| Item ID: | 90032 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1448-5540 |
| Keywords: | bower design, bower light environment, Bowerbirds, microhabitat choice, sensory ecology |
| Copyright Information: | © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
| Funders: | Australian Research Council (ARC) |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Aug 2026 03:13 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310308 Terrestrial ecology @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1806 Terrestrial systems and management > 180606 Terrestrial biodiversity @ 100% |
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