Mi. Sandell, FEMALE AGGRESSION AND THE MAINTENANCE OF MONOGAMY - FEMALE BEHAVIOR PREDICTS MALE MATING STATUS IN EUROPEAN STARLINGS, Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological Sciences, 265(1403), 1998, pp. 1307-1311
Any reduction in the fitness of a breeding female induced by the settl
ement of additional females with her mate creates a conflict between t
he sexes over mating system. In birds, females are often aggressive to
wards other females but few studies have been able to quantify the imp
ortance of female-female aggression for the maintenance of monogamy. T
his study of the European starling, Sturnus vulgaris, quantifies male
and female behaviour towards a potential prospecting female, presented
in a cage during the pre-laying period, and relates it to the subsequ
ent mating status of the male. A solitary breeding male was given the
opportunity to attract an additional mate, which almost half of the ma
les did. No biometric characters of the male or female were related to
the subsequent mating status. Males demonstrated mate-attraction beha
viour towards the caged female but the behaviour of the male did not p
redict the Likelihood to attract an additional female. However, the pr
oportion of time that the female spent near the potential settler was
related to mating status, indicating that females that reacted more st
rongly towards a potential female competitor maintained their monogamo
us status. These results suggest that female behaviour may play an imp
ortant role in shaping the mating system of facultatively polygynous s
pecies.