The relationship between plumage colouration, problem‐solving and learning performance in great tits Parus major

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  • Laure Cauchard
    Dépt de Sciences Biologiques Univ. de Montréal, Montréal Québec Canada
  • Stéphanie M. Doucet
    Dept of Biological Sciences Univ. of Windsor Windsor ON Canada
  • Neeltje J. Boogert
    School of Psychology and Neuroscience, Univ. of St Andrews St Andrews U.K.
  • Bernard Angers
    Dépt de Sciences Biologiques Univ. de Montréal, Montréal Québec Canada
  • Blandine Doligez
    CNRS UMR 5558, Dept of Biometry and Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of Lyon, Villeurbanne, France and Animal Ecology, Dept of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala Univ. Uppsala Sweden

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<jats:p>Recent studies suggest that individuals with better problem‐solving and/or learning performance have greater reproductive success, and that individuals may thus benefit from choosing mates based on these performances. However, directly assessing these performances in candidate mates could be difficult. Instead, the use of indirect cues related to problem‐solving and/or learning performance, such as condition‐dependent phenotypic traits, might be favored. We investigated whether problem‐solving and learning performance on a novel non‐foraging task correlated with sexually selected plumage colouration in a natural population of great tits <jats:italic>Parus major</jats:italic>. We found that males successful in solving the task had darker blue‐black crowns than non‐solvers, and that males solving the task more rapidly over multiple attempts (i.e. learners) exhibited blue‐black crowns with higher UV chroma and shorter‐wavelength hues than non‐learners. In contrast, we found no link between behavioural performance on the task and the yellow breast colouration in either sex. Our findings suggest that blue‐black crown colouration could serve as a signal of problem‐solving and learning performance in wild great tit males. Further research remains necessary to determine whether different sexually selected traits are used to signal cognitive performance for mate choice, either directly (i.e. cognitive performance influencing individual's health and ornamentation through diet for example) or indirectly (i.e. due to a correlation with a third factor such as individual quality or condition).</jats:p>

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