Bold males of tits are more prone to long -term relationships with the female

The team of British and Irish zoologists led by Josh Firth from Oxford University established that the personality traits of birds of birds affect the nature of their connection with the future marriage partner. More courageous males are focused on the formation of a strong relationship with one female, while timid birds usually spend more time with other females.

The scientist managed to find this during observations over the large tits at biostations in the forest zone of Wytham Woods , owned by the University of Oxford.

Over the past two decades, experts in animal behavior have established that among the most different species of animals, from insects to mammals, two behavioral types can be distinguished. Some individuals are active and prone to risk, while others are timid and careful. Read more about such studies in the essay "Personality traits in animals."

Big tits were among the first species in which such a separation of characters was described. Now scientists reveal the connections of a particular type of title of tits with various aspects of their lifestyle, in particular, with the formation of social relations and the structure of communities. In the current study, they determined how timid or courageous are several hundred tits in Whiteem-Woods, and then with the help of radio interpreters they monitored their lives for several years, noting the social ties of each bird.

These observations showed that active and bold males pay considerable attention to the chosen female long before the start of the reproduction season. Hard males use another scenario. They communicate with a large number of different females, without making a choice up to the start of nesting. Perhaps both of these strategies are winning in different social conditions, and the presence of both of them in the population makes it more stable.

The study is published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.