MATE CHOICE BY FEMALE RED JUNGLEFOWL - THE ISSUES OF MULTIPLE ORNAMENTS AND FLUCTUATING ASYMMETRY

The significance of multiple ornaments of male birds and other animals is currently not well understood. Male red junglefowl, Gallus gallus, possess a number of morphological traits that appear to be ornamental in nature. These traits include components of the colourful plumage a nd fleshy structures on the face and head, the single, medially-locate d comb, paired wattles and ear lappets. Some studies have implicated t he comb in the mate choice decisions of female junglefowl, and some ha ve also indicated that plumage of males is not important in this regar d. To test for a possible role of other male morphological ornaments i n female mate choice, and to evaluate the earlier counterintuitive fin dings concerning male plumage, we controlled comb size, and experiment ally manipulated plumage, wattles and ear lappets of male red junglefo wl. We also tested responses of female junglefowl to asymmetry of bila terally paired male ornaments by manipulating the symmetry of the pair ed wattles, ear lappets and the ornate hackle feathers of the neck. No ne of these manipulations provided evidence that female red junglefowl are sensitive to asymmetry of paired ornaments of males. A series of tests involving a male with pronounced body asymmetry likewise produce d negative results. In contrast to some other studies on birds, we obt ained no evidence that female red junglefowl use symmetry of either or namental or non-ornamental traits in mate choice decisions. Comb size, the only male trait Shown to be used by females, both in the present study and in some earlier ones, did not correlate significantly with n atural asymmetry in any of several measured traits. (C) 1998 The Assoc iation for the Study of Animal Behaviour.