Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 76, Issue 6, December 2008, Pages 1927-1934
Animal Behaviour

Assortative versus disassortative mating preferences of female zebra finches based on self-referent phenotype matching

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.08.014Get rights and content

Kin recognition abilities allow individuals to treat relatives differently. In mate choice contexts, kin recognition can ensure individuals avoid the costs of inbreeding. However, there is also the potential for assortative preferences for genetic similarity as part of an optimal outbreeding strategy. We tested the kin recognition abilities of captive female zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, in standard mate choice trials. A full individual cross-fostering scheme ensured that all subjects grew up in broods of only unrelated nestmates and were raised by unrelated foster parents. Therefore, individuals could use only self-referent phenotype matching (or recognition alleles), since exposure to genetic kin was excluded completely. Females were allowed the simultaneous choice between an unfamiliar genetic brother and unfamiliar, unrelated stimulus males. We used three cohorts of birds (199 females in total) that allowed three independent hypothesis tests. We found a significant avoidance of the unfamiliar brother in the first cohort, but could not replicate this finding in the other two cohorts. This was not easily explained by differences in the treatment of the cohorts, since the difference between cohorts was nonsignificant and testable differences in treatments did not show significant effects. The combined effect size was very low (d = −0.048) and nonsignificant. The initial finding of disassortative preferences may represent a type I error or there may be a true effect that is very weak and not easily reproducible. In any case, we did not find evidence of assortative preferences based on self-referent phenotype matching.

Section snippets

Methods

We used a choice chamber paradigm to test for mating preferences. Preferences were measured as time spent close to individual males, since this measure has been shown to correlate with female responsiveness, solicitations to copulations and pairing in aviaries (Clayton, 1990, Houtman, 1992, Witte, 2006, Forstmeier, 2007). The time spent with focal males is significantly repeatable in our population when the same female is tested with the same set of stimulus males several weeks apart (

Results

In 64 trials conducted with the F1 cohort, females showed a significant avoidance of the unfamiliar brother (randomization test: P = 0.011, d ± SE = −0.30 ± 0.12; Fig. 2). In both series of trials with the F2 generation, the results were clearly nonsignificant (F2-1: P = 0.60, d = −0.03 ± 0.07; F2-2: P = 0.67, d = 0.06 ± 0.14; Fig. 2). Despite these differences in estimates, cohorts did not differ significantly from each other (one-way ANOVA: F2,312 = 2.20, P = 0.11). Combining the results in a Bayesian framework by

Discussion

We found a significant avoidance of unfamiliar brothers among 64 females, but could not replicate this finding in two follow-up experiments. This is not easily explained by changes in the experimental design or rearing conditions, since the outcomes of the three experiments did not differ significantly from each other and testable differences in rearing conditions did not show significant effects. The combined effect size ranged from −0.14 to +0.04 standard deviations (95% Bayesian credibility

Acknowledgments

We thank York Winter and Erich Koch for technical help in setting up the choice chambers. James Dale, Bart Kempenaers and Shinichi Nakagawa made helpful comments on the manuscript. Stefan van Dongen gave statistical advice. This project was funded by the German Research Council (DFG, Emmy Noether Fellowship to WF: FO 340/2).

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