Lidiya
7 October 2013

Current Event: Cheating Birds steered to fidelity with red marker

Summary:
In the article, Daniel Baldassarre and Michael Webster set up an experiment in which they used a red Sharpie to trick the female fairy-wrens from mating outside of their species, this could stall marital evolution in the future. They used two groups of fairy-wrens, for one group they colored their backs with a permanent marker and left the other group with their orange feathers on their backs. Instead of the females mating with their own subspecies, they wanted variety. The scientists discovered how the female birds from the orange group preferred the red-colored males. Baldassarre and Webster set up an experiment, in which they tracked 39 male fairy-wrens; 13 were colored red, another 13 colored with clear marker, and remaining 13 with their natural orange color. Turns out, the males with the color red on their backs fathered more offsprings than the naturally orange males. The red-colored males also attracted from female birds that were cheating on their first mate. According to Webster, the orange and red subspecies of the birds are diverging into two distinct species, common in animals, birds, and reptiles. This type of behavior could cause species of birds, mammals, and reptiles to mold into one species.

Discussion:
This could lead to more research about how different traits affect reproduction and how species could increase their survival rates. This research could lead to a more in-depth understanding of how to protect species and allow them to reproduce safely. In class, our study for this unit was about Evolution and how natural selection affects different species' phenotypes in order for the species to have a higher relative fitness. We learned ho reproductive barriers could isolate species. But we also learned how specific traits could attract mates from the opposite sex. one of the operations of sexual selection is called, intersexual selection in which females choose their mates that carry “good” genes. Evolution is constantly changing over time and research similar to this is evidence. Interesting:
The fact that the red-colored males reproduced twice as much as the orange males, from the same area! On top of this the females mated with the red-backed males, outside their own relationship. I was curious about the reasoning behind the females' preference of the red back males over the orange back males. It did mention, they wanted variety. But there must a reason to allow the red-back males to father offsprings. Will this increase the offsprings' chance to survive? It is very interesting how the same species would prefer to mate within the same species, but due to more interesting feature, the females chose a different colored mate.