Extra-pair parentage and personality in a cooperatively breeding bird

True genetic monogamy is rare, even in socially monogamous systems, and multiple factors, such as behaviour, social structure, morphology and physiology, determined by the biological system can cause variation in EPP. Therefore, investigating the inherent differences in these factors amongst individuals could be informative. We investigated whether reproductive outcomes are associated with differences in the propensity to explore novel environments/objects in a promiscuous, island-dwelling cooperatively breeding bird, the Seychelles warbler. Our results showed that exploratory behaviour was not associated with the number of offspring produced by an individual, and thus the long-term fitness consequences of different exploratory tendencies did not differ. We also found that the propensity to engage in EPP in females was higher in dissimilar behavioural pairs, but due to the small effect size we hesitate to conclude that there are personality-dependent mating outcomes in the population.

真正的遗传单配制即便在社会单配制体系中也极为罕见，而由生物系统调控的行为、社会结构、形态学与生理学等多重因素，均可导致婚外父权（Extra-Pair Paternity，EPP）的发生频率存在差异。因此，探究个体间上述因素的固有差异或将具备重要研究价值。本研究以采取混交制、栖息于岛屿的合作繁殖鸟类——塞舌尔莺为研究对象，旨在探究其繁殖成效是否与探索新型环境/物体的倾向差异存在关联。研究结果显示，探索行为与个体所产后代数量并无关联，因此不同探索倾向的个体，其长期适合度后果并无显著差异。此外我们还发现，当雌性与配偶的行为类型存在差异时，雌性发生EPP的倾向更高，但由于效应量较小，我们暂无法断言该种群中存在依赖于个性特征的交配结果。