McGill University, Montréal, Canada.
PLoS One. 2010 Dec 15;5(12):e14340. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014340.
Successful foraging is essential for survival and reproductive success. In many bird species, foraging is a learned behaviour. To cope with environmental change and survive periods in which regular foods are scarce, the ability to solve novel foraging problems by learning new foraging techniques can be crucial. Although females have been shown to prefer more efficient foragers, the effect of males' foraging techniques on female mate choice has never been studied. We tested whether females would prefer males showing the same learned foraging technique as they had been exposed to as juveniles, or whether females would prefer males that showed a complementary foraging technique.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We first trained juvenile male and female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to obtain a significant proportion of their food by one of two foraging techniques. We then tested whether females showed a preference for males with the same or the alternative technique. We found that neither a male's foraging technique nor his foraging performance affected the time females spent in his proximity in the mate-choice apparatus. We then released flocks of these finches into an aviary to investigate whether assortative pairing would be facilitated by birds taught the same technique exploiting the same habitat. Zebra finches trained as juveniles in a specific foraging technique maintained their foraging specialisation in the aviary as adults. However, pair formation and nest location were random with regard to foraging technique.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings show that zebra finches can be successfully trained to be foraging specialists. However, the robust negative results of the conditions tested here suggest that learned foraging specializations do not affect mate choice or pair formation in our experimental context.
成功觅食对于生存和繁殖成功至关重要。在许多鸟类物种中，觅食是一种习得的行为。为了应对环境变化并在常规食物匮乏的时期生存，通过学习新的觅食技巧来解决新的觅食问题的能力可能至关重要。虽然已经表明雌性更喜欢更有效的觅食者，但雄性的觅食技术对雌性择偶的影响从未被研究过。我们测试了雌性是否会更喜欢表现出与它们在青少年时期所接触的相同学习觅食技术的雄性，或者雌性是否会更喜欢表现出互补觅食技术的雄性。
方法/主要发现：我们首先训练雄性和雌性斑马雀（Taeniopygia guttata）幼年来通过两种觅食技术中的一种获得相当比例的食物。然后，我们测试了雌性是否对具有相同或替代技术的雄性表现出偏好。我们发现，雄性的觅食技术或觅食表现都不会影响雌性在交配选择装置中接近雄性的时间。然后，我们将这些雀鸟释放到一个鸟舍中，以调查在同一栖息地中使用相同技术觅食的鸟类是否会更容易进行匹配。在特定觅食技术中受过训练的幼年斑马雀在成年后在鸟舍中保持其觅食专业化。然而，关于觅食技术的配对形成和巢位选择是随机的。
结论/意义：我们的研究结果表明，斑马雀可以成功地被训练成为觅食专家。然而，这里测试的条件的稳健的负面结果表明，习得的觅食专业化不会影响我们实验环境中的择偶或配对形成。
