Parejo, DeseadaGonzález Medina, ErickCruz Miralles, ÁngelAvilés, Jesús Miguel2025-07-172025-07-172025-06-02Parejo, D., González-Medina, E., Cruz-Miralles, Á., & Avilés, J. M. (2025). Size, not color, drives assortative mating and influences fledging survival, weight and immunity in a polymorphic owl. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/S41598-025-04191-12045-232210.1038/s41598-025-04191-1https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/122596The study was funded by the Spanish Ministries of Education and Science/FEDER and of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, respectively, through the projects CGL2014-56769-P, CGL2017-83503-P and PID2020-119576GB-I00.The persistence of color polymorphism in nature may be driven by disassortative mating based on color. In vertebrates, body size sometimes correlates with coloration, complicating mating patterns, as the selective pressures favoring mixed-color pairs might be counterbalanced by those influencing body size. This complexity is heightened in species with reversed sexual size dimorphism, such as owls, where males are smaller than females, and average dissimilarity in mate size may reflect sexual size dimorphism rather than an active disassortative mating pattern. Here we investigate the fitness consequences of mating by color and body size using a long-term dataset from the color polymorphic Eurasian Scops owl (Otus scops), a bird species with reversed sexual size dimorphism. Results reveal that size-disassortative mating enhances reproductive success, as highly size-dimorphic pairs have higher probability of fledging owlets, which may favor reversed sexual size dimorphism. In addition, larger pairs produce heavier owlets with higher immunocompetence, aligning with the conventional size-based mating hypothesis. Although body size and plumage coloration were correlated within pairs, only differences in body size between pair members, not coloration, were related to higher fitness estimates. While color-based assortative mating had no direct impact on any of the fitness proxies studied, greyer pairs exhibited higher feeding rates to offspring than browner pairs. These results underscore the importance of simultaneously considering traits that may covary with color and shape mating patterns to understand the persistence of color polymorphisms in nature.engAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/journal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-04191-1https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-04191-1open access598.279.2591.16591.49591.5Body sizeColor polymorphismNon-random matingOwlsReversed sexual size dimorphismZoologíaAvesFisiología animal (Biología)Ecología (Biología)2401 Biología Animal (Zoología)2401.20 Ornitología2401.13 Fisiología Animal2401.01 Anatomía Animal2401.06 Ecología Animal