Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Female canary mate preferences: differential use of information from two types of maleemale interaction MATHIEU AMY * , MARIE MONBUREAU * , CLE ´ MENTINE DURAND * , DORIS GOMEZ †, MARC THE ´ RY † & GE ´ RARD LEBOUCHER * *Laboratoire d’Ethologie et Cognition Compare ´es, EA 3456, Universite ´ Paris 10 Nanterre yDe ´partement d’Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversite ´, CNRS UMR 7179, Muse ´um National d’Histoire Naturelle, Brunoy (Received 23 July 2007; initial acceptance 23 September 2007; final acceptance 3 March 2008; published online 24 June 2008; MS. number: 9465R) During mate choice, females can assess male quality by sampling one male after the other or by paying attention to the outcomes of maleemale interactions. The latter strategy, called eavesdropping, allows fe- males access to information about males’ relative quality and therefore reduces the time, energy and other costs associated with searching for a mate. For oscine females, information can be gathered both by listen- ing to maleemale singing interactions and by visually observing maleemale interactions. To date, how- ever, there has been no comparison of the subsequent behaviour of females according to the specific type of information (acoustic or visual) gathered from maleemale interactions. In two successive experi- ments, we explored how female domestic canaries, Serinus canaria, use visual and acoustic information ob- tained from a maleemale interaction to direct their sexual behaviour. We found that, whereas females preferred the overlapping song of a singing interaction, they avoided the winner of a physical contest over food. The function and range of signals used in these two types of maleemale competition may ac- count for this discrepancy. Timing of song during countersinging is the expression of ritualized dominance relationships using a long-range secondary sexual trait, whereas threat displays used in food competition are not secondary sexual traits and are potentially harmful at close proximity. The timing of song during countersinging seems to be a more important cue for females than dominance over food in determining their sexual behaviour. Ó 2008 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: domestic canary; female preference; maleemale interaction; Serinus canaria; signals; visual or acoustic cues Female mate choice and maleemale competition have been the interest of many studies but the relationship between these two aspects of sexual selection is poorly understood. As the cost of reproduction is generally greater for females than for males, females are choosier than males when selecting a mate (Andersson 1994) and use different strategies to assess mate quality. Females may assess male quality sequentially and choose the individual of highest quality (Otter & Ratcliffe 2005), but recent studies on communication networks also reveal that females use maleemale interactions to assess the rel- ative quality of males and to determine mate choice (e.g. Doutrelant & McGregor 2000; Leboucher & Pallot 2004) or to direct their extrapair copulatory behaviour (e.g. Otter et al. 1999; Mennill et al. 2002). This process of gathering information from the interactions of others is called eaves- dropping (McGregor & Dabelsteen 1996) and it allows females to assess directly the relative quality of the two interacting males. Females can thus potentially identify mates of higher quality faster than by sequential sam- pling, thereby reducing time, energy and other costs asso- ciated with mate searching (Otter & Ratcliffe 2005). Studies on the use of maleemale interaction to assess relative male quality could be examined in light of the Correspondence: M. Amy, Laboratoire d’Ethologie et Cognition Com- pare ´es, EA 3456, Universite ´ Paris 10 Nanterre, 200 avenue de la re ´pub- lique, 92001 Nanterre, France (email: mamy@u-paris10.fr). D. Gomez and M. The ´ry are at the De ´partement d’Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodi- versite ´, CNRS UMR 7179, Muse ´um National d’Histoire Naturelle, 4 avenue du Petit Cha ˆteau, 91800 Brunoy, France. 971 0003e 3472/08/$34.00/0 Ó 2008 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR, 2008, 76, 971e982 doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.03.023