Journal Article

Mate preference of female blue tits varies with experimental photoperiod

Caro, Samuel, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), van Oers, Kees, Naguib, Marc, Visser, Marcel, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) ; Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) ; Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [Occitanie])-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), Reparaz, Laura, Doutrelant, Claire, Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen] (WUR)

2014

Overview

Organisms use environmental cues to time their life-cycles and among these cues, photoperiod is the main trigger of reproductive behaviours such as territory defence or song activity. Whether photoperiod is also important for another behaviour closely associated with reproduction, mate choice, is unknown. In many bird species, mate choice occurs at two different times during the annual cycle that strongly differ in daylength: in late winter when photoperiod is short and social mates are chosen, and again around egg-laying when photoperiod is longer and extra-pair mates are chosen. This duality makes the role that photoperiod plays on mate choice behaviours intriguing. We investigated the effect of photoperiod on mate choice using three experimental photoperiodic treatments (9 L:15 D, 14 L:10 D, 18 L:6 D), using blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) as a biological model. We show that female choice was stronger under long photoperiods. In addition, female blue tits spent significantly more time near males with long tarsi and long wings. This latter preference was only expressed under long photoperiods, suggesting that some indices of male quality only become significant to females when they are strongly photostimulated, and therefore that females could select their social and extra-pair mates based on different phenotypic traits. These results shed light on the roles that photoperiod may play in stimulating pair-bonding and in refining female selectivity for male traits.

• Publisher: CCSD,Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Animal behavior / Animal biology / Animal communication / Animal sciences / Animals / Biodiversity and Ecology / Biology and Life Sciences / Birds / Birds - physiology / body-size / Cues / Cyanistes caeruleus / Daylength / Ecology / Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Egg laying / Environmental Sciences / european starlings / extrapair paternity / Female / Females / genetic-variation / Global Changes / great tits / Life Sciences / Male / Males / Mate selection / Mating Preference, Animal - physiology / Organ Size / parus-caeruleus populations / Personality / Photoperiod / Photoperiods / plumage coloration / Preferences / Quantitative Trait, Heritable / Reproduction (biology) / Reproductive Biology / reproductive-performance / Seasons / Selectivity / sexually selected trait / Song / Territory / Wings / Wings, Animal - anatomy & histology / Winter