NSF Award
9306620
IBN 93-06620 Yasukawa ABSTRACT students who are considering careers in science.The process by which individuals choose their mates is fundamentally important to the study of animal behavior, and a clear understanding of this process has important implications for many other areas of biology, as well as for human behavior and social organization. In some species, many males commonly have several mates at one time while many others have none. Why females are willing to mate with males who already have mates is a question that has interested biologists for decades. Drs. Yasukawa and Enstrom will investigate mate choice in such a species of bird, focusing on the role of distinctive male plumage. Use of DNA fingerprinting will allow the genetic fathers of nestlings to be identified, so that female choice both of social partners and of genetic mates can be studied. Finally, the effects of genetic parentage on male care-giving will be studied by assessing the male's contributions of food to nestlings and his willingness to defend nestlings against predators. These studies will help to fill a conspicuous void in our knowledge of mate choice and will provide research experiences for several college.
