Life

When female tiger salamanders choose a mate, it turns out that size does matter - tail size that is - and that's not the only factor they weigh. Findings of a Purdue University study show that animals make more complex decisions about choosing mates than once thought. The results of Andrew DeWoody's study, released Monday (June 8) in the journal Molecular Ecology, refute a theory that animals use major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes as the sole basis for mate choice. Immunologists have long known that MHC genes play key roles in the immune response, but more recently behavioral ecologists have postulated that animal mate choice is often based on MHC-type because of the function of those genes."Our data indicate that mate-choice decisions aren't solely dependent on MHC, tail length, body size or any other single factor," said DeWoody, a professor of genetics. "Mate choice is a complex process that takes many factors into account."DeWoody and David Bos, a former postdoctoral assistant who is now a continuing lecturer at Purdue, set out to see how much MHC genes affected mate choice in wild animals. Most prior research showed that an animal would choose a mate with MHC that is the most divergent from its own so that offspring will have more effective immune systems.
Earlier studies in mice suggest that MHC diversity was the sole genetic basis for mate choice. But DeWoody said those studies used mice that were genetically the same in every way except for MHC.
"Sure, mice might base mate-choice decisions wholly on MHC if there is no other consideration, if they don't have any other factors to choose from," DeWoody said. "But wild animals have a lot of different characteristics they can choose from, not just MHC."

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