Lebigre C, Alatalo R V, Siitari H, Parri S
University of Jyväskylä, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, PO Box 35 (YAC442), FIN-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland.
Mol Ecol. 2007 Oct;16(20):4380-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03502.x. Epub 2007 Sep 10.
In bird species with pair bonds, extra-pair matings could allow females to choose genetically superior males. This is not needed in lekking species because female choice is not constrained by pairing opportunities. However, polyandry has been reported in most lekking species studied so far. Using 12 microsatellite loci, we determined the paternity of 135 broods of black grouse sampled between 2001 and 2005 (970 hatchlings and 811 adult birds genotyped). The paternity assignments were combined to lek observations to investigate the mating behaviour of black grouse females. About 10% of the matings seemed to take place with males displaying solitarily. Forty per cent of the copulations between males displaying on the studied leks and radio-tagged females were not recorded. This was due to difficulties in identifying the females and because our observations did not cover all the possible time for matings. However, females of the undetected copulations had chosen males that were already known to be successful on the leks. There was a strong consistency between the observations and true paternity, even when the copulation was disturbed by a neighbouring male. Multiple mating and multiple paternities were rare. We can now confidently ascertain that most females mate only once with one male for the whole clutch. This mating behaviour requires that a single insemination is sufficient to fertilize a clutch and that females can determine whether the sperm has been successfully transferred. Grouse Tetraoninae with many lekking species may be the only bird taxon that has evolved these traits.
在具有配偶关系的鸟类物种中，配偶外交配可以让雌性选择基因更优越的雄性。在求偶场物种中则不需要这样做，因为雌性的选择不受配对机会的限制。然而，到目前为止，在大多数已研究的求偶场物种中都有一妻多夫制的报道。我们使用12个微卫星位点，确定了2001年至2005年间采集的135窝黑琴鸡的父系（对970只雏鸟和811只成年鸟进行了基因分型）。将父系分配结果与求偶场观察结果相结合，以研究黑琴鸡雌性的交配行为。约10%的交配似乎是与单独展示的雄性进行的。在研究的求偶场上展示的雄性与佩戴无线电标签的雌性之间，有40%的交配未被记录。这是由于难以识别雌性，也因为我们的观察没有涵盖所有可能的交配时间。然而，未被检测到的交配中的雌性选择的雄性，都是在求偶场上已被证明成功的雄性。即使交配受到相邻雄性的干扰，观察结果与真实父系之间仍有很强的一致性。多次交配和多个父系的情况很少见。我们现在可以确定，大多数雌性在整个一窝蛋的孵化过程中只与一只雄性交配一次。这种交配行为要求单次授精就足以使一窝蛋受精，并且雌性能够确定精子是否已成功转移。有许多求偶场物种的松鸡科可能是唯一进化出这些特征的鸟类分类群。
