Mate preferences in female canaries (Serinus canaria) within a breeding season

Béguin, Nathalie; Leboucher, Gérard; Bruckert, Laetitia; Kreutzer, Michel

doi:10.1007/s10211-006-0017-3

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Sanz & Tinbergen, 1999;references in Galvan & Sanz, 2011) then females might benefit (i.e. Alatalo, Lundberg & Glynn, 1986;Beguin et al, 2006;Sirkia & Laaksonen, 2009;Jacot, Valcu & Kempenaers, 2010). Moreover, it has been shown that females invest in the clutch (both clutch size and egg size) as a response to male quality (Horvathova, Nakagawa & Uller, 2012), which may contribute to higher hatching success and number of hatchlings with the new partner.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…manipulating the availability of males or sites of different qualities) would be the best way to discriminate between the importance of male and territory quality (e.g. Alatalo, Lundberg & Glynn, 1986;Beguin et al, 2006;Sirkia & Laaksonen, 2009;Jacot, Valcu & Kempenaers, 2010). Finally, it is important to emphasise that the effect size of the correlation between divorce and change in breeding success was significant only when breeding success was non-binary and non-dichotomised (r change = 0.256; 95% CI: 0.018-0.467), while the 95% CI for binary and dichotomised measures overlapped zero.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trading up: the fitness consequences of divorce in monogamous birds

2014

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Social and genetic mating systems play an important role in natural and sexual selection, as well as in the dynamics of populations. In socially monogamous species different genetic mating patterns appear when individuals mate outside the breeding pair within a breeding season (extra-pair mating) or when they change partners between two breeding seasons (widowing or divorce). Divorce can be defined as having occurred when two previously paired individuals are alive during the next breeding season and at least one of them has re-mated with a new partner. In socially monogamous birds divorce is widespread, but it is not clear whether it is a behavioural adaptation to improve the quality of a mating decision or whether, alternatively, it results as a non-selected consequence of other processes: existing studies suggest a heterogeneous set of results with respect to this central question. This heterogeneity could result from a number of factors, ranging from the methodological approaches used, to population- or species-specific characters. In this review we use phylogenetic meta-analyses to assess the evidence that divorce is adaptive (in terms of breeding success) across 64 species of socially monogamous birds. Second, we explore biological and methodological reasons for the heterogeneity in the results of previous studies. Results of our analyses supported the hypothesis that divorce is, in general, an adaptive behavioural strategy as: (1) divorce is triggered by relatively low breeding success; (2) there is a positive change in breeding success as a result of divorce. More specifically, while controlling for methodological moderators, we show that: (i) earlier stages of breeding are better predictors of divorce than later stages (r = 0.231; 95% CI: 0.061-0.391 for clutch size; similar for laying date); (ii) females benefited from divorce more than males in terms of increasing breeding success between successive breeding attempts, with different stages of the breeding cycle improving at different rates (e.g. r = 0.637; 95% CI: 0.328-0.817 for brood-level measures). We show that the effect size was dependent on the methodological approach used across studies and argue that research on the adaptive nature of divorce should be cautious when designing the study and interpreting the results. Altogether, by providing strong evidence that divorce is an adaptive strategy across monogamous birds, the results of our analysis provide a firm ground for further exploration of external covariates of divorce (e.g. demographic factors) and the mechanisms underlying the differences in the effect sizes of the proximal fitness causes and consequences of divorce.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trading up: the fitness consequences of divorce in monogamous birds

2014

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“…Although the fledging success was in the range of previous work on canaries (Hinde ; Beguin et al . ), it should be considered as low. The increase of damage and decrease of glutathione were both within the physiological range; the effect size for both metrics of OS was actually similar to that of previous studies that tested the effect of various endogenous and exogenous stressors on the oxidative balance in both wild and captive vertebrates (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental evidence that oxidative stress influences reproductive decisions

et al. 2015

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1. There is considerable interest of evolutionary ecologists in the proximate mechanisms that constrain life-history variation. It is increasingly recognized that oxidative stress may be a prime physiological constraint on reproduction, but to the best of our knowledge, this has never been tested experimentally. 2. To fill in this gap, we examined whether a specific and short-term experimental increase of pre-reproductive oxidative stress in females of a songbird (canary, Serinus canaria) would influence reproductive decisions (i.e. when and how many eggs to lay), and reproductive success (hatching and fledging success, number of hatchlings and of fledglings produced by each female), as compared to females whose oxidative stress levels were not manipulated. 3. Our experimental reduction of glutathione, a key antioxidant, increased oxidative stress and affected reproductive decisions: treated females significantly delayed the start of egg laying and laid significantly smaller clutches. However, both hatching and fledging success and the number of hatchlings and of fledglings produced by each female were similar between control and treated females. 4. Our results support the hypothesis that oxidative stress may be one proximate mechanism modulating key life-history traits (such as the timing of laying and clutch size in birds) and therefore may act as a link between prevailing environmental conditions and fitness traits.

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“…During this period, we replaced the layed eggs by plastic decoys so that none of the pairs would reproduce. This precaution avoided to induce a bias since the reproductive success experienced during a cycle might influence both sexual preferences [32] and the extra-pair paternity rate [36] during the following reproductive period. One week after the last egg was layed, we removed the nests.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We used domestic canaries Serinus canaria because they represent a good model to address this question. Canaries are socially monogamous [31] , they can discriminate their mate from a familiar individual [32] and both wild and domestic canaries have been observed engaging in extra-pair copulations [33] . Furthermore, female canaries eavesdrop on vocal and physical contests between males and use the obtained information to direct their sexual behaviours [12] , [13] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heaven It's My Wife! Male Canaries Conceal Extra-Pair Courtships but Increase Aggressions When Their Mate Watches

Ung

Amy²,

Leboucher³

2011

PLoS ONE

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Many animals live in a communication network, an environment where individuals can obtain information about competitors or potential mates by observing interactions between conspecifics. In such an environment, interactants might benefit by changing their signalling behaviour in the presence of an audience. This audience effect seems widespread among species, has been observed during various types of interaction (e.g. intra-sexual vs. inter-sexual interaction) and varies according to the social context (e.g. gender, hierarchical or mating status of the audience). However, the way individuals might adapt their signalling behaviour to a combination of these factors remains poorly understood. To address this question, we studied how the presence of an audience affects the behaviour of male domestic canaries Serinus canaria during two types of interactions: (i) an extra-pair interaction and (ii) a male-male competition for food. Males were observed under three conditions: (a) in the absence of audience, (b) in the presence of their mate or (c) of a familiar female. Our results show that male domestic canaries minutely adapt their courting and agonistic behaviours to a combination of: (i) the type of interaction (extra-pair interaction/male-male competition), (ii) the social context (mate, familiar female or nobody in audience) and (iii) the behaviours of both the audience and the interactant. These results highlight the ability of animals to subtly adapt their behaviour to the social environment. This also raises questions about the cognitive foundations and evolution of these processes especially considering that canaries are known neither for having high cognitive abilities nor for being a typical example for the social intelligence hypothesis.

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Mate preferences in female canaries (Serinus canaria) within a breeding season

Cited by 14 publications

References 39 publications

Trading up: the fitness consequences of divorce in monogamous birds

Trading up: the fitness consequences of divorce in monogamous birds

Experimental evidence that oxidative stress influences reproductive decisions

Heaven It's My Wife! Male Canaries Conceal Extra-Pair Courtships but Increase Aggressions When Their Mate Watches

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