Personality assortative female mating preferences in a songbird

Ákos Pogány; Ernö Vincze; Zita Szurovecz; András Kosztolányi; Zoltán Barta; Tamás Székely; Katharina Riebel

doi:10.1163/1568539X-00003500

Personality assortative female mating preferences in a songbird

Ákos Pogány, Ernö Vincze, Zita Szurovecz, András Kosztolányi, Zoltán Barta, Tamás Székely, Katharina Riebel

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

19 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Consistent individual behavioural differences ('animal personalities') are documented across a variety of animal taxa. Sexual selection, especially assortative mating has been suggested as a possible mechanism contributing to the maintenance of different personality types within populations but little is known about non-random pair-formation with respect to personality traits in unconstrained choice tests. We here tested whether female mating preferences were non-random with respect to male and female neophobia in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), an important avian model of mate choice and animal personality research. Male and female neophobia was assessed by attaching novel objects to birds' feeders. Females' mating preferences were tested with randomly assigned, unfamiliar males in a four-way choice apparatus. Females associated most with males with neophobia scores similar to their own. These results provide evidence that mating preferences and personality traits can covary, supporting evolutionary scenarios of assortative mating contributing to the maintenance of personality traits.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	481-503
Number of pages	23
Journal	Behaviour
Volume	155
Issue number	6
Early online date	1 Jun 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1163/1568539X-00003500
Publication status	Published - 2018

Funding

We are grateful to Zoltán Felker and Róbert Enyedi for their assistance during experiments. We thank two anonymous reviewers and Wiebke Schuett for their constructive comments that improved the manuscript. This work was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA K81953 and K109337), and the European Community’s Sixth Frame-work Programme (‘GEBACO’, FP6/2002-2006, no. 28696 and ‘INCORE’, FP6/2002-2006, no. 43318). AP was supported by the ÚNKP-17-4 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities. TS was supported by NKFIH-2558-1/2015, ÉLVONAL-KKP 126949, and the Wis-senschaftskollegium zu Berlin.

Keywords

assortative mating
boldness
mate preference
neophobia
novel object
personality
sexual selection
zebra finch

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Animal Science and Zoology
Behavioral Neuroscience

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10.1163/1568539X-00003500Licence: CC BY-NC

Cite this

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AU - Vincze, Ernö

AU - Szurovecz, Zita

AU - Kosztolányi, András

AU - Barta, Zoltán

AU - Székely, Tamás

AU - Riebel, Katharina

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Personality assortative female mating preferences in a songbird

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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