Colder ambient temperatures constrain female mate preference for ornamental traits.
Zitan Song1,2, Pinjia Que3,4, William Jones5, Chenjing Huang3, Naerhulan Halimubieke6, Peng Ding7, Zhengwang Zhang3, Yang Liu1*
1 State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518107, China
2 Comparative Socioecology group, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, 78467, Germany
3 Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
4 Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chengdu, China
5 Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology, University of Debrecen, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary
6 Milner Center for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath BA1 7AY, UK
7 College of Animal Science, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, 830052, China
* Corresponding author: Dr. Yang Liu
Address.: State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518107, China
Tel: +86 84114063
Fax: +86 84111587
E-mail: liuy353@mail.sysu.edu.cn
Abstract
Male ornamentation is usually costly and may show trades-offs with other life-history traits such as paternal care, which can subsequently affect female preference. Studies on female mate choice have mostly examined how mate-choice cues differ in their expression or ability to be detected in different environmental contexts. However, less focus has been placed on examining how external forces affect female preferences. The purpose of this study was to explore how parental investment strategy and mate choice were mediated by ambient temperature. Specifically, we examined how male ornamentation characteristics and subsequent female incubation investment were impacted by ambient temperature in four plover populations that were breeding across an environmental gradient. We discovered that larger males had more ornamented plumage in warmer conditions, and they were favored by larger females who invested an elevated time into incubation. In contrast, in cooler conditions, males’ body size and the color of their ornaments were inversely associated, and females showed weak preference for males with more colorful ornaments. These results imply that female preference for male ornament can change in response to ambient temperature and demonstrate that female preference for male ornamentation may be limited in harsher conditions with higher parental care expenses.
Keywords: parental care, mate choice preference, ambient temperature, incubation, plover