Signal evolution and species coexistence: visual signals as mediators of interspecific interactions Species coexistence is a key step in diversification, so learning about the traits that allow closely related species to live together is a central goal in understanding the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Signals, specifically, can allow individuals to avoid costly interactions, but we still have much to learn about between-species signaling. My work focuses on signal evolution in birds, asking which signals play important roles in encounters with members of other species, and how these signals reduce unfavourable aggressive and mating interactions. Here, I use citizen scientist-captured photographs and videos to characterize the visual signals that birds use in aggressive interactions with other species, a comparative analysis to ask whether colour pattern broadcasts interspecific dominance status, and field experiments to test the contributions of competing alternative hypotheses in driving colour pattern divergence among co-occurring species. Together, this work paints a new picture of the key role that visual signals play in mediating interspecific interactions among coexisting species, and shows how similar selective pressures may drive both within and between-species signal evolution.
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