Agonism in male hummingbirds

Bountiful examples exist of intense displays—both agonistic and solicitous—in the name of resource and mate acquisitions. In my PhD work at the Flight Lab at University of Montana, I seek to understand how individual variation in body condition, flight maneuvers, and metabolic demands could predict outcome of agonistic interactions in male-male fighting of hummingbirds.

To do this, I began my work in the summer of 2023 exploring the complex web of phenotypic traits and performance metrics that can be in constant trade-off or facilitation, have impacts on fitness and are hypothesized to affect evolvability of phenotypes.

This work has been conducted both in the lab (Field Research Station at Historic Fort Missoula) and the field (thanks to generous landowners throughout Missoula County).

PI: Bret Tobalske

Affiliation: University of Montana.