Meeting Abstract
Hormones are well known for coordinating suites of traits in response to signals in an organism’s environment. Perhaps most notably, an increase in androgens is often associated with activation of breeding behavior in response to photoperiod, but an organism’s social environment may also be an important signal that has the potential to influence trait expression. In male Red-backed Fairy-wrens, androgens are thought to stimulate molt into nuptial red/black plumage months prior to the breeding season, but the environmental signal that causes this change has been unclear. Males of varying age classes can obtain the sexually-selected red/black plumage, but the timing of this molt within a season is variable and may be influenced by social interactions including potential competitive interactions with other males, or pairing opportunities with females. We combine an experimental manipulation of social environment with a network analysis approach to measure the relationship between social environment and androgens in determining ornament expression in red-backed fairy-wrens.
