My Science - Blog / Mein Naturwissenschaftsblog

Hopefully some interesting bits of information extracted from science and non-fiction literature. (For historical reasons there are some poems scattered throughout this blog.) Sachthemen und Sachtexte. (Historisch finden sich auf diesem Blog auch einige Gedichte und Aphorismen.) [Just collecting some exciting bits of information here.] [Eine Sammlung von interessanten Texten, Fragen und Antworten will das hier sein. Nicht mehr, aber auch nicht weniger.]

Sonntag, 31. März 2013

Male satin bowerbird problem-solving ability predicts mating success

Male satin bowerbird problem-solving ability predicts mating success
Jason Keagy et al.; 2009
http://www.life.umd.edu/biology/borgialab/Keagy_et_al_2009_print.pdf

Abstract

Mate choice and mate attraction are important behaviours inﬂuencing the evolution of elaborate traits. It is possible that male general cognitive performance plays an important role in sexual attractiveness, but there has been no direct test of this hypothesis. Satin bowerbirds, Ptilonorhynchus violaceus, are an excellent species for testing this hypothesis because their complex male courtship, including use of decorations of certain colours, suggests a selective advantage to individuals with superior cognitive abilities. We used males’ strong aversion to red objects on their bowers to design two unique problemsolving tests. We presented males with these problems to test the hypothesis that males that are better problem-solvers have higher mating success. We conﬁrmed this prediction and demonstrate that neither age nor motivational level signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced problem-solving scores. Our ﬁndings suggest that general cognitive performance is related to male mating success. This is the ﬁrst evidence that individuals with better problem-solving abilities are more sexually attractive.

[see also: Cognitive ability and the evolution of multiple behavioral display traits; 2012 http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/2/448.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=CHbVqN1Rxssz8d4]

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