RECOGNIZING AND TESTING HOMOLOGY OF COURTSHIP DISPLAYS IN STORKS (AVES, CICONIIFORMES, CICONIIDAE)

Ethological studies in the 1940s and 1950s, most notably those of Lore nz and Tinbergen, emphasized a historical perspective. By the 1970s, t he notion that behavioral traits are too plastic to retain historical information became prevalent, and evolutionary approaches in behaviora l studies were largely abandoned. However, several recent studies have demonstrated that behavioral characters are remarkably consistent wit h phylogenies obtained from other data and not particularly prone to h omoplasy. In this study, I coded descriptions of courtship display beh aviors in stork species (Aves: Ciconiiformes: Ciconiidae) as a matrix of discrete characters. I mapped each behavioral character onto a phyl ogeny based on DNA-DNA hybridization distances to test the homology of individual characters. Generally, displays occurring early in courtsh ip were congruent with phylogenetic relationships and showed little ho moplasy, while displays occurring late in courtship were more homoplas tic. I also performed a phylogenetic analysis of the behavioral data m atrix using maximum parsimony. The strict consensus of the 24 most-par simonious trees was congruent with the DNA-DNA hybridization tree in a ll nodes having greater than 70% bootstrap support.