Flashing your bling: male Calopteryx maculata displays, territoriality and body morphology.

Abstract

A population of Calopteryx maculata (the ebony jewelwing damselfly) was studied in the summer of 2004 in northern Michigan, USA. We studied male courtship behavior of C. maculata, specifically, the cross display. We hypothesized that cross display behavior is a demonstration of body condition. An alternate hypothesis was that cross display behavior is performed in order to attract females to a male's oviposition site. Based on the initial observations, we predicted that non-territorial males were trying to ""fool"" females into believing they owned the territories on which they displayed and so should have a higher display rate than territorial males. In 20 samples, behavioral data for 76 different individuals were collected along with their masses and photographs of their bodies. There was no significant difference in the display behavior of males between body mass indices (BMIs), abdomen length categories, age class, or male territoriality categories. The fact that variation exists but appears independent of any of the characters tested leads us to believe that it must be dependend on other characteristics.