Male foraging efficiency, but not male problem-solving performance, influences female mating preferences in zebra finches.

Véronique Chantal,Frédérique Dubois,Julie Gibelli

doi:10.7717/peerj.2409

Abstract

Experimental evidence suggests that females would prefer males with better cognitive abilities as mates. However, little is known about the traits reflecting enhanced cognitive skills on which females might base their mate-choice decisions. In particular, it has been suggested that male foraging performance could be used as an indicator of cognitive capacity, but convincing evidence for this hypothesis is still lacking. In the present study, we investigated whether female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) modify their mating preferences after having observed the performance of males on a problem-solving task. Specifically, we measured the females’ preferences between two males once before and once after an observation period, during which their initially preferred male was incapable of solving the task contrary to their initially less-preferred male. We also conducted a control treatment to test whether the shift in female preferences was attributable to differences between the two stimulus males in their foraging efficiency. Finally, we assessed each bird’s performance in a color associative task to check whether females can discriminate among males based on their learning speed. We found that females significantly increased their preference toward the most efficient male in both treatments. Yet, there was no difference between the two treatments and we found no evidence that females assess male cognitive ability indirectly via morphological traits. Thus, our results suggest that females would not use the males’ problem-solving performance as an indicator of general cognitive ability to gain indirect fitness benefits (i.e., good genes) but rather to assess their foraging efficiency and gain direct benefits.

Highlights

As the brain structures needed to acquire, process, store and use information from the environment are costly to develop and maintain, cognitive abilities in both humans and animals are often considered as an honest indicator of genetic quality that should be used as a mate-choice criterion (Jacobs, 1996; Miller, 2000; Boogert, Fawcett & Lefebvre, 2011)
This finding indicates that females that had to choose between two males that differed largely in their learning performance were not more likely to prefer the faster learner of the two stimulus males than those that had to choose between two potential mates with more similar learning speeds
We found that zebra finch females significantly increased their mating preference toward the most efficient male, after having observed the performance of the two stimulus males in both treatments

Summary

Introduction

As the brain structures needed to acquire, process, store and use information from the environment are costly to develop and maintain, cognitive abilities in both humans and animals are often considered as an honest indicator of genetic quality that should be used as a mate-choice criterion (Jacobs, 1996; Miller, 2000; Boogert, Fawcett & Lefebvre, 2011). Supporting the idea that males with better cognitive skills are preferred as mates, two studies have demonstrated that males with better spatial learning abilities are more attractive to females in both meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) (Spritzer, Meikle & Solomon, 2005) and guppies (Poecilia reticulata) (Shohet & Watt, 2009). Little is known about the traits reflecting enhanced cognitive skills on which females might base their mate-choice decisions in other taxa or even in bird species in which song complexity is not a meaningful indicator of cognitive capacity (Boogert et al, 2011; Templeton, Laland & Boogert, 2014)

Methods

Results

Conclusion