Effects Of Body Conditions And Territorial Song On Mate Choice In The Great Tit(Parus Major)

Animals’ sexual selection mainly works through male competition and female choice. Mate choice is the most important parts of breeding behavior in birds,is one of important forms of sexual selection. Morphological characteristics and territorial song are supposed to deliver the individual quality, and they are also the important factors affecting the mate choice. In order to explore the effects of the morphological characteristics and territorial song on mate choice and breeding success, the author conducted a study about the morphological characteristics of male and female adult birds, genetic heterozygosity and song characteristic on the mate choice in the great tits( Parus major), and analysis the influence of mate choice on clutch size and the first egg laying date in inside artificial nest box during March to July in 2012-2014 at Zuojia Nature Reserve, Jilin province.During the study period, we caught 75 pairs of Great tit during their first brood, and recorded 35 males’ territorial song.We found there existed significant positive correlations in composite body size indicator( r = 0.356, p = 0.002), beak length( r = 0.556, p < 0.01), head height( r = 0.447, p < 0.01), middle toe length( r = 0.292, p = 0.013) between the female Great tits and mates they selected, but not breast stripe characteristics. These results showed that female may choice mate according to male body size.Great tits morphological characteristics are thought could reflect body quality or physical condition, this study found that the initial egg laying dates of first broods in Great tit negatively correlated with male composite body size indicator( r =-0.249, p = 0.036), breast stripe length( r =-0.528, p < 0.01) and breast stripe width( r =-0.620, p < 0.01). First-brood clutch size positively correlated with male breast stripe length( r = 0.305, p = 0.023) and breast stripe width( r = 0.314, p =0.019); initial egg laying date negatively correlated with clutch size( r =-0.559, p < 0.01); breast stripe width positively correlated with gene heterozygosity( r = 0.344, p = 0.016). These results indicated that femaleGreat tits choose male mate with different morphological characteristics may affect the breeding time and the clutch size.In this study, we found no correlation between male song characteristics and their composite body size indicator, no correlated between male song characteristics and female body size composite indicator, and no correlated between male song characteristics and gene heterozygosity. But the first egg laying date correlated with the frequency of male territorial song( r =-0.406, p = 0.049), that is, males who with high song rate breeds early. This result suggested that male with high song rate may take advantage in mate choice.Therefore, the author suggest that the female Great tits may depend on male morphological characteristics to selected mates, and the quality of male mates selected by females may affect their laying time and clutch size, but need further experiments to verify.