Female finches prefer courtship signals indicating male vigor and neuromuscular ability
Female finches prefer courtship signals indicating male vigor and neuromuscular ability
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0226580
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发表时间：
2020-01-10
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Prather, Jonathan F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dunning, Jeffery L.;Pant, Santosh;Prather, Jonathan F.
雌性鸣禽使用雄性的歌声来区分个体，并评估它们作为潜在配偶的质量。之前在许多物种中进行的行为实验，包括这里研究的物种，已经表明即使没有雄性在场，雌性也会对歌声做出回应。这些数据表明，女性的择偶是密切相关的歌曲功能，但他们留下了开放的问题，歌曲参数是最有影响力的女性择偶。我们试图找出男性歌曲的特点是突出的女性孟加拉雀的择偶。使用一种新的实验方法，我们同时测试了可能的影响，具体的笔记或注意过渡，不同的注意类型的数量在男性的剧目，注意内容和注意顺序的复杂性，注意内容和注意顺序的刻板印象。在另外的实验中，我们还测试了音高和克里思对音符产生的影响。我们的研究结果表明，女性一般更喜欢的歌曲包含增加克里思的背景下，物种的典型频率带宽，与女性更喜欢的歌曲，特别是具有挑战性的生产的想法是一致的。在其他物种中也有报道称，雌性对构成神经肌肉挑战的歌曲特征的偏好。我们的数据将这些观察结果扩展到一个在实验室环境中茁壮成长的物种，并且通常用于研究行为的神经基础。这些结果提供了一个很好的新的模型系统，在其中研究女性的偏好和神经机制，信号评估和择偶。
Female songbirds use male song to discriminate among individuals and evaluate their quality as potential mates. Previous behavioral experiments in many species, including the species studied here, have shown that females will solicit copulation in response to song even if no male is present. Those data demonstrate that female mate choice is closely tied to song features, but they leave open the question of which song parameters are most influential in female mate selection. We sought to identify features of male song that are salient for mate choice in female Bengalese finches. Using a novel experimental approach, we simultaneously tested the possible influence of specific notes or note transitions, the number of different note types in the male's repertoire, the complexity of note content and note sequence, and the stereotypy of note content and note sequence. In additional experiments, we also tested the influence of the pitch and tempo of note production. Our results demonstrate that females generally preferred songs containing increased tempo in the context of species-typical frequency bandwidth, consistent with the idea that females prefer songs that are especially challenging to produce. Female preference for song features that pose a neuromuscular challenge has also been reported in other species. Our data extend those observations into a species that thrives in a laboratory setting and is commonly used in studies of the neural basis of behavior. These results provide an excellent new model system in which to study female preference and the neural mechanisms that underlie signal evaluation and mate choice.