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Female siskins choose mates by the size of the yellow wing stripe

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Abstract

Commonly, female birds use the brightly coloured patches on males to choose the best-quality mates. Coloured wing patches, however, have received little attention or have been previously related to social behaviour (as a signal to recruit conspecific individuals at feeding patches) or foraging (to flush prey) contexts, rather than to sexual selection. Here we provide evidence that in siskins (Carduelis spinus), wing patches function in mate choice. Mate-choice experiments showed that females were attracted by the size of the yellow wing stripe of the male, but not by the size of its black bib, body size, general plumage brightness or age. Experiments on birds with manipulated yellow wing stripes showed that females were sensitive to the size of this colour patch, irrespective of other male qualities. The preference of female siskins for males with larger wing patches when searching for a mate may be explained by the relationship of this trait to foraging ability, which would ensure females good parental investment from the chosen male.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Lluïsa Arroyo for assistance in the laboratory and for reviewing the paper, Fernando Senar for designing and building the experimental cage, and David Boné and Ester Vilamajor for field assistance. We also thank William A. Searcy and two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions on the paper, Tony Mainwood for early discussions on the possible importance of the siskin yellow wing stripe, and Peter Hörak for discussions on an earlier version of the paper. Birds were captured and kept in captivity with permission of the Subdirecció General de Conservació de la Natura, Departament de Medi Ambient, Generalitat de Catalunya. This work was funded by BOS 2003-09589 research project from the Spanish Research Council, Ministerio de Ciéncia y Tecnología.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. U.A. CSIC, Museu de Ciències Naturals, Pº Picasso s/n, Parc Ciutadella, 08003 , Barcelona, Spain

    J. C. Senar, J. Domènech & M. Camerino

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  1. J. C. Senar
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  2. J. Domènech
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  3. M. Camerino
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Correspondence to J. C. Senar.

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Communicated by W.A. Searcy

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Senar, J.C., Domènech, J. & Camerino, M. Female siskins choose mates by the size of the yellow wing stripe. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 57, 465–469 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-004-0873-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-004-0873-7

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