Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Birds of a feather lek together

A lek looks like a winner-takes-all competition between males to attract females. But appearances could be deceptive, and the males might be a family group cooperating to their mutual evolutionary advantage.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Display of unity? Petrie et al.2 found that male peacocks choose related birds as lek mates.

References

  1. Höglund, J., Alatalo, R. V., Lundberg, A., Rintamäki, P. T. & Lindell, J. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 266, 813–816 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Petrie, M., Krupa, A. & Burke, T. Nature 401, 155–157 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Höglund, J. & Alatalo, R. V. Leks (Princeton Univ. Press, 1995).

  4. Deutsch, J. C. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 34, 451–459 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Widemo, F. & Owens, I. P. F. Nature 373, 148–151 (1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Watts, C. R. & Stokes, A. W. Sci. Am. 224, 112–118 (1971).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Kokko, H. & Lindström, J. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 263, 919–923 (1996).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. McDonald, D. B. & Potts, W. K. Science 266, 1030–1032 (1994).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Petrie, M. Nature 371, 598–599 (1994).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Sherman, P. W., Reeve, H. K. & Pfennig, D. W. in Behavioural Ecology, 4th edn (eds Krebs, J. R. & Davies, N. B.) 69–96 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Sherman, P. W. Ethol. Sociobiol. 12, 377–386 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Dawkins, R. The Extended Phenotype (Freeman, San Francisco, 1982).

  13. Parr, L. A. & deWaal, F. B. M. Nature 399, 647–648 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Alexander, R. D. Ethol. Sociobiol. 11, 241–303 (1990).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul W. Sherman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sherman, P. Birds of a feather lek together. Nature 401, 119–120 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/43574

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/43574

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing