3 ms·
If this is a factor you should see the opposite pattern in birds.
by tveita 7y ago
If this is a factor you should see the opposite pattern in birds.
- chongli 7y agoThat’s a great point. It may be very hard to see though. Male birds tend to be the ones with bright, showy plumage. They also tend to spend the most effort in courtship, with the Bowerbird [1] being the most extreme example. Since bright colours, elaborate songs, and other courtship displays tend to make male birds more vulnerable to predation, I would hypothesize that male birds also have greater trait variability due to all this risk taking. It would make for an interesting study anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird
- SamReidHughes 7y agoIt has been studied. Body size is more variable in female birds.