Lance-tailed manakins employ a unique mating ritual in which the male bird repeatedly jumps over a male “buddy” to attract a female’s interest. FSU’s Emily DuVal studies these birds while investigating how animals choose mates. Although research often focuses on the flashy traits and behaviors of male birds, the team’s main insights have come from investigating the female birds' perspective, such as how they assess male birds and how their search behavior changes as they age.

They developed a mathematical model dubbed Inferred Attractiveness that proposes a new idea about how females choose mates, says DuVal. “We suggest females learn from each other’s mate choices but use the context of other males to decide what makes a chosen male attractive. Because observing females aren’t mind-readers, they can make ‘mistakes’ in inferring what traits are important, and this generates some interesting patterns over time.”

• Emily DuVal