The role of social behaviour in mate choice
Cooperation is at the very base of our society and it has been argued that the adoption of cooperative breeding by our hominin ancestors provides the most parsimonious explanation for the origin of human hyper-cooperation. In addition, in humans, cooperation seems to bring not only kin benefits but also sexual benefits by influencing partner choice. Whether cooperative behaviour also influences partner choice in wild animals remains almost unknown. Two powerful tools will be used in this project, SOCIAL MATCH, to answer this question. First, statistical analyses of a long-term database including both cooperative behaviour and mating success and, second, new technologies to determine if and how cooperative behaviours can be sexually selected. In my project SOCIAL MATCH, I will focus on the cooperative behaviours of a natural population of a passerine under long-term investigation, the Sociable Weaver (Philetairus socius). I will test the predictions that if cooperation brings sexually selected benefits then it should be linked to mating success, condition and should be advertised. I will measure condition developing automated detection of individual mass. I will quantify the vocal behaviour of cooperating birds using on-board miniature microphones and classify the obtained vocalizations with machine learning algorithm. With the acquired information I will be able to design a playback experiment to explore the links between vocal advertisement of cooperation and probability of finding a mate. Therefore, I will quantify every step from the decision of helping to the breeding phase. Despite their explicit evolutionary relevance, the consequences of sexually selected direct benefits on promoting and maintaining cooperation have remained largely unexplored. SOCIAL MATCH aims to be a keystone project in the path of resolving these questions.