Biology Series Seminar: Dr Bob Montgomerie

• In-person event
• 4440Q, Carleton Technology and Training Centre, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6

• Contact
• Andrew Simons, andrew.simons@carleton.ca

“The Peacock’s Tale”

Dr Bob Montgomerie
Professor
Department of Biology
Queen’s University

Abstract: Darwin famously claimed that the sight of the peacock’s tail made him sick – it was just too beautiful to have been shaped by natural selection, and yet… nobody studied the peacock in more than a century after Darwin made the peacock the poster boy of sexual selection (his solution to the tale’s beauty) despite this being one of the most widespread birds in the world due to its attractiveness in zoos, wildlife parks and estates. In this seminar, I will describe our research over the past decade on the factors that have made the male’s ‘tail’ one of the most beautiful and and complex structures in the animal kingdom. In the ‘field’ we quantified male courtship behaviour and female responses, measured plumage colours using reflectance spectrometry, examined some particulars of male display using high-speed videography, and recorded the sounds that peacocks made while displaying. Using mathematical models of peafowl vision, we quantified the signals that peahens actually perceive and how those signals influence male mating success. We also constructed and tested biomechanical models of feather movement to determine how males use their ‘tails’ to make both visual and auditory signals during their displays. Darwin might have enjoyed hearing about our discoveries but the panoply of unanswered questions revealed by our studies would have done little to alleviate his discomfort in watching a peacock display.

Host Lab: Godin 

Sexual selection- Sexual ornamentation- Courtship displays- Mate choice