Noguera José C, Metcalfe Neil B, Monaghan Pat
Departamento de Ecología y Biología Animal, Torre CACTI, Universidad de Vigo, As Lagoas Marcosende, 36310, Vigo, Spain.
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine, College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Graham Kerr Building, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK.
Naturwissenschaften. 2017 Nov 14;104(11-12):102. doi: 10.1007/s00114-017-1524-y.
Poor early-life nutrition could reduce adult reproductive success by negatively affecting traits linked to sexual attractiveness such as song complexity. If so, this might favor strategic mate choice, allowing males with less complex songs to tailor their mating tactics to maximize the reproductive benefits. However, this possibility has been ignored in theoretical and empirical studies. By manipulating the micronutrient content of the diet (e.g., low or high) during the postnatal period of male zebra finches, we show for the first time (1) that males reared on a poor (low) micronutrient diet had less complex songs as adults; (2) that these males, in contrast to the high micronutrient diet group, were more selective in their mating strategies, discriminating against those females most likely to reduce their clutch size when paired with males having less complex songs; and (3) that by following different mating strategies, males reared on the contrasting diets obtained similar reproductive benefits. These results suggest that early-life dietary conditions can induce multiple and long-lasting effects on male and female reproductive traits. Moreover, the results seem to reflect a previously unreported case of adaptive plasticity in mate choice in response to a nutritionally mediated reduction in sexual attractiveness.
早期营养不良可能会通过对与性吸引力相关的特征（如鸣叫复杂性）产生负面影响，从而降低成年后的繁殖成功率。如果是这样，这可能有利于策略性择偶，使鸣叫不太复杂的雄性调整其交配策略，以最大化繁殖收益。然而，这一可能性在理论和实证研究中一直被忽视。通过在雄性斑胸草雀出生后的时期操纵饮食中的微量营养素含量（例如低或高），我们首次表明：（1）在微量营养素含量低的不良饮食中饲养的雄性成年后鸣叫不太复杂；（2）与高微量营养素饮食组相比，这些雄性在交配策略上更具选择性，会歧视那些与鸣叫不太复杂的雄性配对时最有可能减少其窝卵数的雌性；（3）通过遵循不同的交配策略，在不同饮食中饲养的雄性获得了相似的繁殖收益。这些结果表明，早期饮食条件可对雄性和雌性的繁殖特征产生多重且持久的影响。此外，这些结果似乎反映了一个此前未报道的案例，即配偶选择中存在适应性可塑性，以应对营养介导的性吸引力降低。
