Correlates of dominance in wintering white-throated sparrows: age, sex and location

Abstract Correlates of dominance were investigated in a wintering population of white-throated sparrows, Zonotrichia albicollis , in 3 successive years at four locations along a 400-m hedgerow. Multiple regression analyses were used to detect characteristics correlated with a sparrow's ability to dominate conspecifics. Age, but not length of time resident in an area, and sex, but not size, both affected dominance. Individuals had higher dominance near the centres of their ranges, and dominance in a bird's first winter was related to dominance in later winters. The presence of site-dependent dominance in this species shows that dominance relations observed at any one location resulted from overlapping dominance fields of the individuals occurring there.

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