Your new post is loading...
Dans l’épisode précédent, on a vu qu’on peut difficilement expliquer les goûts sexuels des femelles par des arguments adaptatifs. Pour autant les femelles ont manifestement des préférences pour tel ou tel trait masculin, alors à quoi ces préférences sont-elles dues et pourquoi les mâles exhibent-ils parfois des ornements aussi inutiles qu’encombrants ?
Par Xochipilli. Le Webinet des Curiosités, 01.02.2014
[Image] Experimental Setups
via Public Versus Personal Information for Mate Copying in an Invertebrate: Current Biology, 09.04.2009 http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(09)00889-6
"... We [Mery, Varela, Danchin & al.] report the first evidence that a female invertebrate can exploit public information to select mates. In a first experiment, Drosophila melanogaster female prospectors increased their time in the attraction zones of poor-condition males, but not of good-condition males, after having observed them with a model female. This suggests that females appraised prospective mates by exploiting public information and did so mainly when it contrasted with personal information. In a second experiment, prospector females preferably mated with males of the color type they had previously observed copulating over males of the rejected color type, suggesting that female Drosophila can generalize socially learned information. The complexity of Drosophila decision-making suggests an unprecedented level of cognition in invertebrates."
(...)
