John Anthony JonesUniversity of Alberta | UAlberta · Department of Psychology
John Anthony Jones
PhD
Postdoc in the Songbird Neuroethology Lab at the University of Alberta
About
24
Publications
4,832
Reads
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229
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I study the intersection of signal evolution, the behaviors that result of these signals, and the physiological underpinnings of these phenotypes in female animals. Birdsong and coloration are my jam. I have additional broader research interests in urban ecology, interspecific aggression, and interspecific competition. He/Him/His
Additional affiliations
August 2013 - December 2015
Position
- Research Assistant
Description
- Ornithology, Ecology, Intro-Biology (Ecology/Evolution), Global Climate Change & Earth's Life
August 2013 - December 2015
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- Ecological and behavioral consequences of sympatry between golden-winged and chestnut-sided warblers in the southern Appalachians
May 2013 - August 2014
Audubon North Carolina
Position
- Field Technician
Description
- Golden-winged Warbler Conservation Project (www.gwwa.org)
Education
August 2016 - May 2021
August 2013 - December 2015
August 2011 - May 2013
Publications
Publications (24)
We know little of the proximate mechanisms underlying the expression of signaling traits in female vertebrates. Across males, the expression of sexual and competitive traits, including ornamentation and aggressive behavior, is often mediated by testosterone. In the white-shouldered fairywren (Malurus alboscapulatus) of New Guinea, females of differ...
Conspicuous female signals have recently received substantial scientific attention, but it remains unclear if their evolution is the result of selection acting on females independently of males or if mutual selection facilitates female change. Species that express female, but not male, phenotypic variation among populations represents a useful oppo...
Androgens like testosterone mediate suites of physical and behavioral traits across vertebrates, and circulation varies considerably across and within taxa. However, an understanding of the causal factors of variation in circulating testosterone has proven difficult despite decades of research. According to the challenge hypothesis, agonistic inter...
Although conflict is often adaptive and necessary to secure limited resources, it is also frequently a costly endeavor. Signals that reliably communicate competitive ability are commonly employed by animals to reduce conflict costs. Both male and female signals have the capacity to serve as honest indicators of competitive ability, but the extent t...
Agonistic conflict is ubiquitous throughout taxa, although the intensity of aggression observed is often highly variable across contexts. For socially monogamous species, a coordinated effort by both pair members can improve both the chances of successfully warding off challengers and reinforce pair bonds. However, the intensity of aggression exert...
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...
Conspicuous female signals have recently received substantial scientific attention, but it remains unclear if their evolution is the result of selection acting on females independently of males or if mutual selection facilitates female change. Species that express female, but not male, phenotypic variation among populations represent a useful oppor...
Testosterone mediates suites of physical and behavioral traits across vertebrates, and circulation varies considerably across and within taxa. However, an understanding of the causal factors of variation in circulating testosterone has proven difficult despite decades of research. According to the challenge hypothesis, agonistic interactions betwee...
Conspicuous female signals have recently received substantial scientific attention, but the degree to which female-specific selection drives their evolution remains unclear. Species that express female-specific phenotypic variation among populations represent a useful opportunity to address this knowledge gap. White-shouldered fairywrens (Malurus a...
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...
We know little of the proximate mechanisms underlying expression of signaling traits in female vertebrates. Across males the expression of sexual and competitive traits, including ornamentation and aggressive behavior, is often mediated by testosterone. In the White-shouldered Fairywren ( Malurus alboscapulatus ) of New Guinea, females of different...
The White-shouldered Fairywren (Malurus alboscapulatus) is a tropical passerine bird distributed across much of New Guinea. White-shouldered Fairywrens are among few species of fairywren with exclusively tropical distributions and differ from better studied congeners in Australia because subspecies vary by female, but not male, coloration and morph...
Many urban areas have elevated soil lead concentrations due to prior large-scale use of lead in products such as paint and automobile gasoline. This presents a potential problem for the growing numbers of wildlife living in urbanized areas as lead exposure is known to affect multiple physiological systems, including the nervous system,
in vertebrat...
Although plumage displays often reliably signal individual condition and age, how these sexually selected traits vary with geographic region is not well understood. Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) populations are fragmented and declining precipitously in the Appalachian Mountains. Limited research suggests that Golden-winged Warbler f...
Significance
Identifying drivers of population trends in migratory animals is difficult due to their reliance on different geographic regions throughout the annual cycle. Populations of Nearctic–Neotropical migratory birds are often thought to be limited by spatial variation in factors affecting reproduction and survival during the breeding season....
Aggressive interference competition for limited resources is frequently observed among animals. However, these behavioral interactions within (intraspecific) and between (interspecific) species are costly as they can be energetically expensive and cause injury or death. To avoid these agonistic interactions, numerous species alter their behaviors a...
For at-risk wildlife species, it is important to consider conservation within the process of adaptive management. Golden-winged Warblers (Vermivora chrysoptera) are Neotropical migratory songbirds that are experiencing long-term population declines due in part to the loss of early-successional nesting habitat. Recently-developed Golden-winged Warbl...
Avian plumage represents some of the greatest diversity in integument coloration of all animals. Plumage signals are diverse in function, including those that allow for assessing potential mates or the mitigation of agonistic interactions between rivals. Many bird species possess multiple ornamental traits that have the potential to serve as multip...
When multiple species occur sympatrically, divergence in morphological and behavioural traits associated with species recognition and resource use are expected. Individuals that engage in interspecific aggression often suffer fitness consequences if the benefits of securing resources do not outweigh the risks associated with agonism. In the souther...
Interspecific aggression is widespread throughout the animal kingdom, yet research that documents the evolutionary and ecological consequences remains limited and unclear. Aggressive behaviors are often indicative of an ecological niche overlap between morphologically and ecologically similar species, which can cause interference competition betwee...
Plumage coloration within species is often a signal of competitive ability and can influence territorial aggression between males. Agonistic interactions among males of different co-occurring species could result from misidentification (misdirected) conspecific aggression). Reflectance spectrometry of plumage coupled with models of avian vision can...
Determining how to best measure habitat quality is essential for many conservation plans and basic ecological questions. Territory quality is thought to be a product of physical habitat characteristics (i.e., habitat quality) and the density of competitors yet these relationships are rarely demonstrated. Occupancy rates, or how often a territory ha...
Questions
Question (1)
So, if a bird exists in multiple populations that vary from 0-2,000m above sea level with three distinct color morphs, is there any reason to believe that oxygen availability or structure of the Hb genes would influence the mechanisms behind melanin-based plumage production? I can understand that there are differences in Hb structure from lowland and highland subspecies and there may be shifts in body mass to deal with temperature variation as well. But I'm interested in if there is any basis for wondering if attitudinal gradients may be responsible for phenotypic divergence. Thanks for any insight you may have.
