Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology found that choosiness in mates of zebra finches had a lesser cost on reproduction.
Nature documentaries ripe with images of bouncing birds with crazy plumage have led us to believe that animal preferences have a lot to do with natural selection. While true for many creatures, this is not really the case for monogamous zebra finches. One of the only proven preferences that female zebra finches have is for male birds that sing in the same dialect as them, meaning they have songs similar to those in the female finch’s home habitat.
“This is like a cuckoo strategy,” says Wolfgang Forstmeier, researcher in ornithology and lead author on“where females that don’t have a partner just lay eggs in the nests of other females and let their chicks be raised by them.” The female finches have previously shown their preference for male birds with their dialect. The reasoning behind this is not entirely understood, but the songs that a bird has heard for several generations in its native environment is the one they seek out when choosing their life partner.The dialects are in such ratios that some of the females have plenty of choice, and others have to compete for a few,” Forstmeier said.
“I did the experiment to demonstrate that there are costs, and then they turned out to be much smaller than I had expected,” Forstmeier says. “The birds are actually quite pragmatic, and quite successful in handling this difficult situation of having preferences that are hard to satisfy.”
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