Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology (KLIVV), Department of Integrative Biology and Evolution, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna,Savoyenstraße 1a, A-1160, Vienna, Austria.
Front Zool. 2012 Jun 25;9(1):14. doi: 10.1186/1742-9994-9-14.
The differential allocation hypothesis (DAH) predicts that individuals should adjust their parental investment to their current mate's quality. Although in principle the DAH holds for both sexes, male adjustment of parental investment has only been tested in a few experimental studies, revealing contradictory results. We conducted a field experiment to test whether male blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) allocate their parental effort in relation to female ornamentation (ultraviolet colouration of the crown), as predicted by the DAH.
We reduced the UV reflectance in a sample of females and compared parental care by their mates with that of males paired to sham-manipulated control females. As predicted by the DAH our results demonstrate that males paired with UV-reduced females invested less in feeding effort but did not defend the chicks less than males paired with control females.
To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies providing support for male differential allocation in response to female ornamentation.
差异分配假说（DAH）预测，个体应该根据当前配偶的质量来调整其亲代投资。尽管原则上 DAH 适用于两性，但男性对亲代投资的调整仅在少数实验研究中进行了测试，结果相互矛盾。我们进行了一项现场实验，以测试雄性蓝知更鸟（Cyanistes caeruleus）是否根据 DAH 将其亲代努力分配给雌性的装饰物（头冠的紫外线颜色）。
我们降低了一组雌性的紫外线反射率，并比较了它们的伴侣雄性与配对到模拟处理控制雌性的雄性的亲代照顾。正如 DAH 所预测的，我们的结果表明，与配对到控制雌性的雄性相比，与紫外线减少的雌性配对的雄性在喂食努力方面投入较少，但对雏鸟的保护并不比雄性少。
据我们所知，这是第一项提供支持雄性根据雌性装饰物进行差异分配的研究之一。
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