Table · dataset · 2026
Code and data for: Seeking smarts: Male chickadees with better spatial cognition sire more extra-pair young
Listed in figshare
<p dir="ltr">Across animal taxa, females commonly mate with more than one male, even in monogamous mating systems.
Description
These extra-pair copulations and resulting young may increase the fitness of the female via a variety of mechanisms. The ‘good genes’ hypothesis suggests that socially monogamous females mate outside their pair bond to increase the fitness of their offspring via indirect genetic benefits, because extra-pair males do not provide parental care.
We tested this hypothesis by quantifying extra-pair paternity in nonmigratory, food-caching mountain chickadees (<i>Poecile gambeli</i>). Chickadees rely on spatial cognition to recover scattered food caches and variation in spatial cognition is associated with increased survival, longer lifespan, and is heritable. However, less is known about the role of sexual selection on spatial cognitive abilities.
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In the current study, we found that 1. males with better spatial cognitive abilities sired more extra-pair young and produce heavier offspring in their own nests compared to their poorer performing counterparts, and 2. extra-pair males had significantly better spatial cognition than the social males they cuckolded. These results suggest that sexual selection shapes the evolution of spatial cognition in food-caching chickadees and are consistent with the good genes hypothesis, which posits that females gain indirect genetic benefits via extra-pair young.</p>
Links
Where it is published
- DOI doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25343779.v2 ↗
DOI / persistent id · from figshare com
Catalogue records · 1
- OAI-PMH record api.figshare.com/v2/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai%3Af… ↗
metadata API · from figshare com
Topics
Provenance · 1 source records, 18 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| figshare | oai:figshare.com:article/25343779 | 11 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| access_level | source · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].anzsrc:field:310901 | mapping · figshare com | vocabulary-mapper@1.0.0 | keywords['Animal behaviour'] |
| concepts[field].local:field:astronomy | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:chemistry | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:computer-science-ai | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:economics-finance | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:engineering | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:humanities | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:life-sciences | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:medicine-health | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:psychology-behavioral | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:social-science | mapping · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/description |
| license | source · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/rights |
| publication_date | source · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · figshare com | connector:figshare_com@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/title |