Male quality and conspecific scent preferences in the house finch, Carpodacus mexicanus

Luisa Amo,Isabel López-Rull,Iluminada Pagán,Constantino Macías Garcia

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.09.021

Luisa Amo, Isabel López-Rull + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.09.021

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Abstract

There is increasing evidence that birds use chemical cues in different contexts, and this is changing the traditional view that birds are the only largely olfaction-free vertebrates. We performed a choice experiment to examine whether male house finches exhibit any preferences for the sex of conspecifics when only their chemical cues are available. When exposed during the breeding season to the scent of a male and a female, males appeared to respond indiscriminately to both odours. However, when we analysed a posteriori the choices of males in relation to their relative quality, males with worse quality than scent donor males avoided the male-scented area, whereas males with better quality moved towards the male-scented area. Our results suggest that in the context of mate choice/competition for mates, house finches may obtain information via olfaction to assess the quality of rival males.

Highlights

Departamento de Ecología Funcional y Evolutiva, Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas (C.S.I.C.), Carretera de Sacramento s/n, E-04120, La Cañada de San Urbano, Almería, Spain
This lack of preference does not seem to be due to a methodological artefact, since results of another study using the same apparatus and experimental setup indicate that C. mexicanus may use chemical information to detect a predator (Amo, L., López-Rull, I., Pagán, I. & Macías Garcia, C., unpublished data), as was previously shown in this (Roth et al 2008) and other species (Amo et al 2008, 2011; but see Johnson et al 2011)
Interpreting social scent preferences in a choice arena is difficult because, the study was performed during the reproductive period of the species when we may expect a preference for the scent of potential partners, odour preferences may be related to other behaviours that take place during this period, such as territorial defence or dominance interactions

Summary

Introduction

Departamento de Ecología Funcional y Evolutiva, Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas (C.S.I.C.), Carretera de Sacramento s/n, E-04120, La Cañada de San Urbano, Almería, Spain. There is increasing evidence that birds use chemical cues in different contexts, and this is changing the traditional view that placed birds alone as the only largely olfaction-free vertebrates. Our results suggest that in the context of mate-choice/competition for mates, house finches may obtain information via olfaction to assess the quality of rival males. The role of chemical communication in different contexts of avian life is receiving growing attention (for reviews see Caro & Balthazart 2010; Hagelin & Jones 2007; Hagelin 2007a), and this is changing the traditional view that beyond mechanical interactions, birds mainly respond to visual and acoustic cues in their environment It has been shown that birds can recognize their nest using chemical cues

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