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This is what researchers from the Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin report in the journal Psychological Science (requires subscription, PubMed). And they do a pretty good job at demonstrating it, too. They conditioned male quail to only expect a female to copulate with in one out of two differerent cages. In a test after training, each male copulated with a female in both cages. This was done such that each female received exactly one copulation from a male expecting to see her and one copulation by an unsuspecting male. Normally, such sequential copulation leads to offspring sired about 50:50 from each male. The scientists then used the DNA of the resulting eggs to determine the paternity of the sired offspring. It turned out that now, instad of a 50:50 distribution, the expecting males had an advantage over the unsuspecting males of 72:28.This is a very nice example of a very concrete learning experience having a direct evolutionary benefit. Most studies so far were merely on the fitness increase animals derive from their learning abilities in general.
Posted on Wednesday 05 September 2007 - 13:59:53 comment: 0
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