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Data from: Lek habitat selection by sympatric manakin species in Northwestern Ecuador

Sheehy, Erin1; Anderson, Luke H.1; Carrasco, Luis2; Olivo, Jorge2; Cabrera, Domingo2; Gonzalez, Nelson2; Ribeiro, Renata1; Karubian, Jordan1

Published Nov 17, 2025 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ncjsxkt4c

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Abstract

Habitat selection plays a fundamental role in determining community structure and species coexistence, although the role played by sexual selection in shaping settlement patterns is less well understood. Manakins (Pipridae) are a Neotropical family of lekking birds that exhibit similar behavioral ecology across species, both in terms of resource use and dependence on elaborate visual signaling for mate attraction, yet they differ in the form of their sexually selected displays and ornaments. We characterized and compared the spatial dispersion and habitat attributes of lek sites for four species of sympatric manakins in the Chocó region of northwestern Ecuador to test two primary hypotheses for lek habitat selection. First, the interspecific hotspot hypothesis predicts that ecologically similar species should position leks in locations where females are likely to be encountered (e.g., resource-rich patches, topographic channels), and thus lek sites of different species should cluster in geographic space. In contrast, the signal enhancement hypothesis proposes that species should establish leks in habitats with ambient light or structural properties optimal for the transmission or perception of species-specific mating signals, and therefore species should segregate in environmental space due to their distinct displays and plumage ornaments. We found that leks of the four species did not cluster in geographic space and were generally associated with distinct environmental characteristics. Moreover, when species’ leks did overlap in geographic or environmental space, they segregated vertically in terms of display perch height. These findings are consistent with the idea that landscape-level lek site selection by sympatric manakins may be shaped primarily by sexual display optimization, rather than resource-related mechanisms related to their shared ecology. Finally, this study also flags the local population of Masius chrysopterus as a species of potential conservation concern due to its distinct and restricted lek habitat preferences.