Mate choice copying versus preference for actively displaying males by female pied flycatchers

Should a female copy the mate choice of other females? A female may rank a mated male higher in quality than an unmated male because the former has de monstrated that he is able to attract a female. However, a prospecting fema le may also avoid a mated male because of the risk that she has to compete with the male's initial mate over access to copulations, breeding resources and male parental care. We studied the mate choice of female pied flycatch ers, Ficedula hypoleuca, in aviaries divided into three compartments, two f or males, and one for a female. A female was allowed to choose (build a nes t in a nestbox) between two males after a period when she had been kept in a rage behind a one-way mirror and had presumably seen that one of the male s was in the company of another female for 5 h. There was no evidence that females copied the mate choice of conspecific females, or that they avoided males that had recently been in the company of another female. Instead, fe males apparently chose a mate independently of others, choosing the male sh owing most courtship display. The latter result explains the consistency in mate choice observed when different females chose between the same pair of males in repeat trials. The ability of females to pick out the same male i ndependently may also explain why a few males obtain most copulations in le kking species. (C) 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.