In the jungle where domesticated chickens come from, there are many predators. In the morning, roosters crow which will attract potential predators (daily). This behavior, in this perspective, is disadvantageous because it will give the location of the rooster to predators and will eventually be eaten by one. Roosters that crow will then be selected by predatory pressures and so the remaining roosters should eventually be roosters that do not crow. However,crowing can still be observed in domesticated roosters. Why? How do the benefits of crowing outweigh its disadvantages?
Please have a look at this useful link.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281559610_The_highest-ranking_rooster_has_priority_to_announce_the_break_of_dawn
Article The highest-ranking rooster has priority to announce the break of dawn
Thanks Arvind but what exactly are the benefits of crowing aside from distinguishing the pecking order? And how does this outweigh predation?
Well, Arvind Ji, as the famous lines from the new Nobel Laureate Sir Bob Dylan Sahab goes...When the rooster crows at the break of dawn, Look out your window and I'll be gone, You are the reason I am travelling on, Don't think twice, It's all right! Regards. Ajay
You may go through these links.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/01/roosters-crow-really-morning-day/
http://earthsky.org/earth/why-roosters-crow
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-roosters-crow-2015-2?IR=T
It's also a territorial behaviour - a way of taking control of its territory and claiming dominance among the fowl kingdom. It can also serve as a sexual behaviour for attracting the female counterparts.
Thank you Sarvade and Felix but why does crowing still exist in roosters when they should have been selected out, before domestication? Possible answer: crowing outweighs predatory disadvantages, follow-up question, how?
Kindly check this too..
http://learn.eartheasy.com/2016/06/do-your-backyard-chickens-need-a-rooster/
Why don't people research what and why porcupines do? There are more of these possibly on our campus than roosters
This is a question that's been explored in one way or another since Darwin. He couldn't explain why some traits which seemed detrimental would remain in a population under selection. This was the basis for sexual selection, in which individuals are under intense selection for mate acquisition. In some models, if female preference for a trait is genetically linked to that trait in the male, you can get some intense expression (runaway selection). Another idea is that males who demonstrate a detrimental trait (or handicap) but are still able to survive and reproduce get the majority of matings from females because they have "good genes". In other words, they are able to survive in spite of having this detrimental trait, and females recognize this. So in the case of the roosters, perhaps crowing is a signal to females that the male is in such good condition that he can suffer the potential cost of increased predation pressure, and by mating with him, potential mates can pass this hardiness (or skill at avoiding predators) to their offspring.
Kyle;
Following up on Cramer's comment... Other familiar examples of this phenomenon ("an honest signal") include peacocks' tails, male guppies' bright colors, lekking behavior in some birds and antelope, dawn choruses in forest communities of songbirds. All of these behaviors are metabolically costly, risky, and impossible to "fake". As Cramer indicated, the females can "trust" the signal to identify healthy, vigorous males as candidates for mating. What I find most interesting about the dynamics of this kind of sexual selection is that the females' behavior causes the males to compete among themselves thus winnowing the male gene pool.
Cheers, Jim des Lauriers
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