Research on lance-tailed manakin (Chiroxiphia lanceolata) cooperation and sexual selection by the DuVal Lab has been ongoing since 1999.  We welcome postdoctoral scholars who are interested in taking advantage of the long-term samples databases associated with this project to develop their own area of inquiry or contribute to ongoing work on cooperation, female mate choice, and physiological variation in this species.  The study includes 18 years of data on social status, siring success, nesting success, and morphometric measurements in a population of color-banded and genetically vouchered individuals, with >2075 individuals sampled since the start of the project.  We see particular opportunities for new lines of research by those interested in demography, epigenetic regulation of social behavior, telomere dynamics, and genomic analysis.

Our primary research project investigates variation in cooperative behavior.  Cooperation is a key part of many complex animal societies, but even within close-knit groups some individuals cooperate more than others. We now know individuals may benefit from cooperation in several ways, but mechanisms underlying decisions to cooperate and variation in the amount of cooperation remain incompletely understood. The lance-tailed manakin provides an excellent opportunity to investigate why individuals vary in cooperative behavior, and how cooperative and non-cooperative behaviors coexist. Males of this tropical bird cooperate with non-relatives in coordinated courtship displays, but only dominant alphas mate. Some males serve long terms (6+ years) as non-breeding betas, while others become alphas without ever being betas. Both highly cooperative and non-cooperative males breed once alpha, but males cooperating for the average number of years have low alpha success. Current research in the DuVal Lab assesses the role of territory quality, genetic variability, phenotypic plasticity and bet-hedging strategies on beta male behavior.