caa a22 4500 465781853 CHVBK 20180323111957.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170327e19900101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00174024 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00174024 Sexual selection and the evolution of bird song: A test of the Hamilton-Zuk hypothesis [Elektronische Daten] [Andrew Read, Daniel Weary] Summary: Hamilton and Zuk (1982) suggested that secondary sexual characters evolve because they allow females to assess a potential mate's ability to resist parasites. A prediction of this theory is that the degree of elaboration of secondary sexual characters should be positively correlated with parasite load across species. In support of their hypothesis, Hamilton and Zuk reported a correlation across North American passerine species between haematozoa prevalence and both brightness and song "complexity and variety”, scored on a subjective six point scale. Here we show that this relationship is confounded by phylogenetic associations. We use quantitative data on song duration, inter-song interval, song continuity, song rate, song versatility, and song and syllable repertoire size for 131 species of European and North American passerines to test the Hamilton-Zuk hypothesis. Across species, there are significant negative relationships between haematozoa prevalence and song continuity, contrary to the direction predicted by Hamilton and Zuk. In accordance with their prediction, there is a positive correlation with song versatility. However, these relationships come about through taxonomic associations: within taxa there are no consistent relationships between any of the song variables and haematozoa prevalence. None of the other song variables correlate with haematozoa prevalence. We conclude that there is no evidence of an association between song elaboration and parasites. Springer-Verlag, 1990 Read Andrew Zoology Department, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK aut Weary Daniel Zoology Department, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK aut Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Springer-Verlag 26/1(1990-01-01), 47-56 0340-5443 26:1<47 1990 26 265 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00174024 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00174024 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Read Andrew Zoology Department, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Weary Daniel Zoology Department, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Springer-Verlag 26/1(1990-01-01), 47-56 0340-5443 26:1<47 1990 26 265 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer