Who's a clever boy then?
There is considerable value in choosing a smart mate. The suggestion that mate choice has thus shaped the evolution of cognition has been around since Darwin's time, but testing this hypothesis is difficult. Chen et al. found that female budgerigars shifted their preference to previously nonpreferred males after these males demonstrated the ability to solve a problem that stumped the originally preferred males (see the Perspective by Striedter). This preference shift was specific to problem-solving and to choosing males.
Abstract
Darwin proposed that mate choice might contribute to the evolution of cognitive abilities. An open question is whether observing the cognitive skills of an individual makes it more attractive as a mate. In this study, we demonstrated that initially less-preferred budgerigar males became preferred after females observed that these males, but not the initially preferred ones, were able to solve extractive foraging problems. This preference shift did not occur in control experiments in which females observed males with free access to food or in which females observed female demonstrators solving these extractive foraging problems. Our results suggest that direct observation of problem-solving skills increases male attractiveness and that this could contribute to the evolution of the cognitive abilities underlying such skills.
Register and access this article for free
As a service to the community, this article is available for free.
Access the full article
View all access options to continue reading this article.
Supplementary Material
Summary
Materials and Methods
Figs. S1 to S4
Tables S1 to S5
Movies S1 and S2
Data S1 to S4
Resources
References and Notes
1
C. Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (John Murray, ed. 1, 1871).
2
G. Miller, The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (Anchor Books, ed. 1, 2001).
3
N. J. Boogert, T. W. Fawcett, L. Lefebvre, Mate choice for cognitive traits: A review of the evidence in nonhuman vertebrates. Behav. Ecol. 22, 447–459 (2011).
4
L. K. Snowberg, C. W. Benkman, Mate choice based on a key ecological performance trait. J. Evol. Biol. 22, 762–769 (2009).
5
A. Kotrschal, B. Taborsky, Environmental change enhances cognitive abilities in fish. PLOS Biol. 8, e1000351 (2010).
6
L. Cauchard, N. J. Boogert, L. Lefebvre, F. Dubois, B. Doligez, Problem-solving performance is correlated with reproductive success in a wild bird population. Anim. Behav. 85, 19–26 (2013).
7
B. J. Ashton, A. R. Ridley, E. K. Edwards, A. Thornton, Cognitive performance is linked to group size and affects fitness in Australian magpies. Nature 554, 364–367 (2018).
8
K. Karino, T. Utagawa, S. Shinjo, Heritability of the algal-foraging ability: An indirect benefit of female mate preference for males’ carotenoid-based coloration in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 59, 1–5 (2005).
9
A. Kotrschal, A. Corral-Lopez, S. Zajitschek, S. Immler, A. A. Maklakov, N. Kolm, Positive genetic correlation between brain size and sexual traits in male guppies artificially selected for brain size. J. Evol. Biol. 28, 841–850 (2015).
10
L. Cauchard, S. M. Doucet, N. J. Boogert, B. Angers, B. Doligez, The relationship between plumage colouration, problem‐solving and learning performance in great tits Parus major. J. Avian Biol. 48, 1246–1253 (2017).
11
J. Keagy, J.-F. Savard, G. Borgia, Male satin bowerbird problem-solving ability predicts mating success. Anim. Behav. 78, 809–817 (2009).
12
A. J. Shohet, P. J. Watt, Female guppies Poecilia reticulata prefer males that can learn fast. J. Fish Biol. 75, 1323–1330 (2009).
13
M. D. Spritzer, D. B. Meikle, N. G. Solomon, Female choice based on male spatial ability and aggressiveness among meadow voles. Anim. Behav. 69, 1121–1130 (2005).
14
J. Morand-Ferron, E. F. Cole, J. L. Quinn, Studying the evolutionary ecology of cognition in the wild: A review of practical and conceptual challenges. Biol. Rev. Camb. Philos. Soc. 91, 367–389 (2016).
15
S. Tebbich, A. S. Griffin, M. F. Peschl, K. Sterelny, From mechanisms to function: An integrated framework of animal innovation. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150195 (2016).
16
A. Thornton, J. Isden, J. R. Madden, Toward wild psychometrics: Linking individual cognitive differences to fitness. Behav. Ecol. 25, 1299–1301 (2014).
17
E. Wyndham, Environment and food of the budgerigar Melopsittacus undulatus. Aust. J. Ecol. 5, 47–61 (1980).
18
J. Stamps, A. Clark, B. Kus, P. Arrowood, The Effects of Parent and Offspring Gender On Food Allocation in Budgerigars. Behaviour 101, 177–199 (1987).
19
C. A. Toft, T. F. Wright, Parrots of the Wild: A Natural History of the World's Most Captivating Birds (Univ. of California Press, 2015).
20
C. Heyes, A. Saggerson, Testing for imitative and nonimitative social learning in the budgerigar using a two-object/two-action test. Anim. Behav. 64, 851–859 (2002).
21
R. Mui, M. Haselgrove, J. Pearce, C. Heyes, Automatic imitation in budgerigars. Proc. Biol. Sci. 275, 2547–2553 (2008).
22
A. Medina-García, J. M. Jawor, T. F. Wright, Cognition, personality, and stress in budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus. Behav. Ecol. 28, 1504–1516 (2017).
23
V. Chantal, J. Gibelli, F. Dubois, Male foraging efficiency, but not male problem-solving performance, influences female mating preferences in zebra finches. PeerJ 4, e2409 (2016).
24
G. F. Miller, P. M. Todd, Mate choice turns cognitive. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2, 190–198 (1998).
25
S. B. Kaufman, A. Kozbelt, M. L. Bromley, G. F. Miller, “The role of creativity and humor in mate selection,” in Mating Intelligence: Sex, Relationships, and the Mind's Reproductive System, G. Geher, G. Miller, Eds. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008), pp. 227–262.
26
J. Keagy, J.-F. Savard, G. Borgia, Cognitive ability and the evolution of multiple behavioral display traits. Behav. Ecol. 23, 448–456 (2011).
27
J. Madden, Sex, bowers and brains. Proc. Biol. Sci. 268, 833–838 (2001).
28
S. M. Pearn, A. T. Bennett, I. C. Cuthill, The role of ultraviolet‐A reflectance and ultraviolet‐A‐induced fluorescence in budgerigar mate choice. Ethology 109, 961–970 (2003).
29
P. E. Shrout, J. L. Fleiss, Intraclass correlations: Uses in assessing rater reliability. Psychol. Bull. 86, 420–428 (1979).