{"id":4800,"date":"2016-01-25T10:24:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T15:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/?post_type=cu_event&#038;p=4800"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:51:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T20:51:57","slug":"biology-series-seminar-dr-bob-montgomerie","status":"publish","type":"cu_event","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/event\/biology-series-seminar-dr-bob-montgomerie\/","title":{"rendered":"Biology Series Seminar: Dr Bob Montgomerie"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n        \n    <\/h1>\n    \n        <\/header>\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    <div class=\"cu-buttongroup cu-component-updated flex flex-wrap md:flex-1 gap-3 md:gap-5 justify-start\">\n                                                                        <\/div>\n    \n<p><strong>\u201cThe Peacock\u2019s Tale\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/biology.queensu.ca\/people\/department\/professors\/montgomerie\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dr Bob Montgomerie<\/a><br>\nProfessor<br>\nDepartment of Biology<br>\nQueen\u2019s University<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract: Darwin famously claimed that the sight of the peacock\u2019s tail made him sick \u2013 it was just too beautiful to have been shaped by natural selection, and yet&#8230; 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\u2019s 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\u2019s \u2018tail\u2019 one of the most beautiful and and complex structures in the animal kingdom. In the \u2018field\u2019 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 \u2018tails\u2019 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.<strong><\/strong><strong>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Host Lab:<a href=\"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/people\/jean-guy-godin\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Godin&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sexual selection- Sexual ornamentation- Courtship displays- Mate choice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_event_type":[],"cu_event_audience":[],"class_list":["post-4800","cu_event","type-cu_event","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"cu_event_start_date":"2016-01-29T15:30:00","cu_event_end_date":"2016-01-29T16:30:00","cu_event_location_type":"in-person","cu_event_meeting_address_type":"on-campus","cu_building":"TT","cu_event_meeting_room":"4440Q","cu_event_meeting_address_full":null,"cu_event_virtual_type":"tbd","cu_event_virtual_meeting_link":"","cu_post_thumbnail":"event-mic","cu_event_cost":"","cu_event_registration":"","cu_event_secondary_button":"","cu_event_contact_name":"Andrew Simons","cu_event_email":"andrew.simons@carleton.ca","cu_event_phone":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event\/4800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_event"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event\/4800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_event_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event_type?post=4800"},{"taxonomy":"cu_event_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_event_audience?post=4800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}