ASSESSMENT OF THE QUALITY OF COPULATION PARTNERS IN THE MONOGAMOUS BEARDED TIT

Females try to control paternity in various ways. They may resist copu lation attempts by males but they may also feign resistance in order t o incite competition between males. In the lifetime monogamous bearded tit, Panurus biarmicus, chase-flights, both within pairs and with oth er males, occur during the female's fertile period. In general, these chase-flights are followed by copulations. Females in this study were able to resist copulations, but they also often approached males and s olicited copulations by wing flapping; if males tried to mount the fem ales, they resisted and flew away. During the fertile period females s olicited extra-pair males to chase them significantly more often than they solicited chases with their own mate. In isolated pairs chase-fli ght activity was reduced and most copulations occurred without precedi ng chase-flights. In addition, females in isolated pairs solicited the ir partners to chase them significantly less often than females with e xtra males available. This suggests that females use chases to incite male-male competition and thus to obtain 'good genes'. In contrast to other studies, females paired to high-ranking males incited more chase -flights than females paired to low-ranking males, perhaps because onl y high-quality females could afford to perform this energetically expe nsive activity. (C) 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behav iour.