Auditory and sexual preferences for a father's song can co-emerge in female Bengalese finches.

ABSTRACT: Birdsong is an important communication signal used in mate choice. In some songbird species, only the males produce songs. While the females of those species do not sing, they are sensitive to inter- and intra-species song variations, and the song preferences of females depend on their developmental experiences and/or genetic predispositions. For example, in Bengalese finches and zebra finches, adult females prefer the song to which they were exposed early in life, such as the father's song. In the current study, we aimed to test whether the preference for the father's song, as reported in previous Bengalese finch studies, can be interpreted as a mating preference. For this purpose, the subjects were raised exclusively with their family until they became sexually mature and then tested as

SUBMITTER: Fujii TG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8912213 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature