Meeting Abstract
Feathers act as sensors to detect mechanical stimuli during avian flight and tactile navigation, suggesting that they may also function to detect signals during social displays. In this study, we used laboratory experiments to determine whether the airborne stimuli generated by Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) courtship and social displays couple efficiently via resonance to the vibrational response of feather crests from the heads of peafowl. Peafowl crests were found to have fundamental resonant modes with frequencies that could be driven near-optimally by the shaking frequencies used by peafowl performing train vibrating displays. Crests also were driven to vibrate near resonance when audio recordings of sounds generated by these displays were played back in the near-field, where such displays are experienced in vivo. When peacock wing-shaking courtship behaviour was simulated in the laboratory, the resulting directional airflow excited measurable vibrations of crest feathers. These results suggest that peafowl crests have properties that make them suitable mechanosensors for multiple potential airborne signals generated during social displays. Diverse feather crests are found in many bird species that perform similar displays, suggesting that such sensory functions may be widespread and derived from flow sensing in other contexts. We suggest behavioral studies to further explore these ideas and their functional implications.
