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Dynamic Status Signal Reflects Outcome Of Social Interactions, But Not Energetic Stress, Keith A. Tarvin, L Jin Wong, David C. Lumpkin, Gabrielle M. Schroeder, Dominic D'Andrea, Sophie Meade, Pearl Rivers, Troy G. Murphy

Troy G Murphy

Social defeat induces stress-responses in a wide array of vertebrates and can generate winner-loser effects. Dynamic condition-dependent signaling systems that reflect preparation for subsequent agonistic interactions, and thereby mediate winner-loser effects, should be more sensitive to competitive history than to non-social sources of stress. Bill color of female American goldfinches (Spinus tristus) is a dynamic condition-dependent ornament that functions as a signal of competitive status and mediates intrasexual agonistic social interactions. We tested the “social experience signaling hypothesis” in female goldfinches by (1) manipulating a non-social energetic stressor by experimentally elevating flight costs via wing-clipping in free-ranging birds, …