Ana V. Leitão

• MSc Ecology · PHD Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology
• Post-Doc Researcher at Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources

Historically, bird song complexity was thought to evolve primarily through sexual selection on males; yet, in many species, both sexes sing and selection pressure on both sexes may be broader. Previous research suggests competition for mates and resources during short, synchronous breeding seasons leads to more elaborate male songs at high, tempera...

Song has been extensively studied in birds and is considered a classic example of a sexually selected trait. However, this interpretation is based predominantly on studies of males. There is growing evidence that female song is common and phylogenetically widespread, but there are still relatively few species for which song similarities and differe...

Sexual selection theory has provided explanation for the evolution and function of elaborate male traits, yet less effective in explaining female trait expression. Consequently, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of how female ornamentation is maintained and what factors drive its evolution. The European serin (Serinus serinus) di...

In social living animals, individuals typically use two main strategies to find food: either by exploiting social information (scrounger) or relying on personal knowledge (producer). These tactics are often linked to different life-history strategies. Access to foraging patches in hierarchical social groups may constrain the use of the producer-scr...

Camera traps are widely used in wildlife research and monitoring, so it is imperative to understand their strengths, limitations, and potential for increasing impact. We investigated a decade of use of wildlife cameras (2012–2022) with a case study on Australian terrestrial vertebrates using a multifaceted approach. We (i) synthesised information...

Coevolutionary interactions between avian brood parasites and their hosts often lead to the evolution of discrimination and rejection of parasite eggs or chicks by hosts based on visual cues, and the evolution of visual mimicry of host eggs or chicks by brood parasites. Hosts may also base rejection of brood parasite nestlings on vocal cues, which...

Historically, bird song complexity was thought to evolve primarily through sexual selection on males, yet in many species both sexes sing. Previous research suggests competition for mates and resources during short, synchronous breeding seasons leads to more elaborate male songs at high latitudes. In contrast, we expect male-female song dimorphism...

Sexual selection has been proposed to drive the evolution of elaborate phenotypic traits in males, which often confer success in competition or mating. However, in many species, both males and females display such traits. Studies examining how selection acts on both sexes are scarce. In this study, we investigated whether plumage ornamentation is s...

Sexual selection has been proposed to drive the evolution of elaborate phenotypic traits in males, which often confer success in competition or mating. However, in many species both males and females display such traits, although studies reporting selection acting in both sexes are scarce. In this study, we investigated whether plumage ornamentatio...

Animal signals of competitive ability allow contests for limited resources to be settled without costly physical fights. Traits indicating competitive ability are diverse and span visual, acoustic or chemical modalities. Although animal signalling has been intensively studied, research has focused mainly on male traits. Little is known about the ex...

The forces shaping female plumage color have long been debated but remain unresolved. Females may benefit from conspicuous colors but are also expected to suffer costs. Predation is one potential cost, but few studies have explicitly investigated the relationship between predation risk and coloration. The fairy-wrens show pronounced variation in fe...

The Lovely Fairy-Wren (Malurus amabilis) is endemic to the wet tropics of Australia and is one of 11 species in the genus Malurus. Despite the large number of studies on fairy-wrens, little is known about the Lovely Fairy-Wren. This study provides the first detailed description of its ecology, behaviour, and breeding biology. Lovely Fairy-Wrens dis...

We report a case of brood-parasitism by the Brush Cuckoo Cacomantis variolosus of the Lovely Fairy-wren Malurus amabilis. We recorded by observation and photography a fledgling Brush Cuckoo being fed by a pair of Lovely Fairy-wrens in a period of 16 days during February and March 2016 in Cairns, Queensland. These observations are the first record o...

In gregarious animals, social interactions frequently take the form of dominance hierarchies that maintain stable relationships between individuals, and settle disputes without extra costs. Traits that function as signals of status can play an important role in mediating interactions among individuals, both in social and in sexual contexts. Caroten...

Ornamental traits typically advertise individual condition and can be costly to maintain. Plumage maintenance behaviour can increase plumage quality and positively influence female mate preference. We investigated this prediction by performing female mate-choice trials and measuring male plumage maintenance behaviour in the European Serin Serinus s...

The recent growth of research on animal personality could provide new insights into our understanding of sociality and the structure of animal groups. Although simple assays of the type commonly used to study animal personality have been shown to correlate with social aggressiveness in some bird species, conflicting empirical results do not yet mak...

Selection due to social interactions comprises competition over matings (sexual selection stricto sensu) plus other forms of social competition and cooperation. Sexual selection explains sex differences in ornamentation and in various other phenotypes, but does not easily explain cases where those phenotypes are similar in males and females. Unders...

Avian plumage colouration is one of the most impressive displays in nature and is frequently used as sexual signal. There is now considerable evidence that females consistently prefer males with the most elaborated colour displays. Bird colour vision expands into the ultraviolet (UV) range, which prompted several studies to test the importance of U...

Behavioral differences among individuals are common and are organized into personalities in a wide variety of species. Hypotheses for the coexistence of behavioral differences fall into 3 categories: variation in selection, frequency-dependent selection, and behavioral plasticity. We tested predictions of those hypotheses regarding geographic covar...

One of the most common signs of sexual selection in birds is plumage colouration. In several species, ornamental traits are signals of individual quality which are costly to maintain, as it involves physiological costs, increased risk of predation and time spent. Thus, maintenance behaviour may have a positive honest signalling effect in mate choic...

The Mozambique tilapia is a lek-breeding cichlid in which males establish social hierarchies through aggressive interactions. The dominant males, unlike the submissive, store more urine and release it in pulses, whose frequency increases during aggression bouts towards opponent males. Moreover, the olfactory potency of urine is positively correlate...

Personality is usually described as a continuum, with "bold" and "shy" ends. As the former are described as more active and more prone to take risks, they are expected to have higher metabolic requirements and thus higher ventilatory rates, compared to the opposite extreme of "shy" personality. In this study we aimed at determining the personality...

Na tilápia de Moçambique, (Oreochromis mossambicus), os machos com maior motivação agressiva libertam sinais químicos urinários durante confrontos agonísticos. No presente estudo foi avaliado se a estimulação com a putativa feromona de dominância afecta a frequência de ventilação opercular (medida por um método não invasivo) e o comportamento agres...