Article on Gouldian Finch Personalities

[David2406]

Found this article on the Birds in Backyards website, might interest those of you who keep gouldians

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/18297721

David

[finchbreeder]

There are a number of links on the Forum to research by Sarah Pike and others in regard to the differences observed between head colours in Gouldians. Go to Search in the top right hand corner and type Sarah Pike or Gouldian hear colours to read these.
LML

[Niki_K]

*Pryke

[Tiaris]

I would be very interested to know the sample sizes for these experiments. ie how many red-headed birds and how many black-headed birds are used to conduct the experiment upon which broad sweeping conclusions are drawn which are claimed to be typical of the species as a whole. My concerns in this regard relate to both this and the Sarah Pryke conclusions regarding head colour, temperament, mating preference, and breeding outcomes. Nowhere anywhere in the associated literature have I seen any indications of sample sizes upon which these conclusions are drawn. To me, the full disclosure of this is vital to give any credibility to the claims being made as can then be seen to be subject to the appropriate scrutiny before any such conclusions are regarded as valid species-wide fact in relation to the Gouldian Finch. A relatively small sample size over a very limited timeframe just doesn't cut it for me as near enough to draw any ground-breaking conclusions deserving of widespread acceptance of credibility. Without knowing this I remain extremely sceptical of at least some of the claims/conclusions so far depicted as established facts in relation to the Gouldian Finch.

[KENTUCKY]

I too am very sceptical in regards to Dr. Pryke's findings, having bred Gouldians since 1973, almost fourty years,drawing on my personal expiriance, I find her time frame too short, changing Head Colours does not convince me of her findings, no matter which way you toss it or turn it, the Sex ratio will always even itself out. I have had Pairings of mixed Head Colours that bred more Cocks then Hens and vice versa the very same applies to same Head Colour Pairings, I am not convinced that Dr. Pryke's results are as black and white as it is reported.
Never the less, her Articles make good reading.

[GregH]

Since I no longer work for an institution that gives me open access to scientific Journals I can't look in the primary literature where you will find such details as the number of birds and pairing that were used in Dr Pryke's experimental set ups. Some are of course free if you look for them. You can be pretty sure that the numbers used and the trials reported on in the more prestigious journals (Nature & Science) are the same as the articles here. The stats are good with correlations of r>0.8 but you can never have too many replicates or sample sizes in an experiment like these:

Pryke, S; Astheimer, L; Buttemer, W; Griffith, S (2007). Frequency-dependent physiological trade-offs between competing colour morphs. Biology Letters. 22 October 2007 vol. 3 no. 5 494-497. Birds: 120 male Gouldians. Six males were placed in an unfamiliar cage (2.1 m3) and allowed to interact for 6 days. Five replicates of four different social environments were created by altering the frequency of red- to black-headed birds (R/B: 0/6; 2/4; 4/2; 6/0). Male dominance rank was inferred daily from two well-established competitive contests for this species: standardized contests for access to limited food and relative position in a linear dominance hierarchy.

Pryke, S; Griffith, S (2007).The relative role of male vs. female mate choice in maintaining assortative pairing among discrete colour morphs. Journal of Evolutionary Biology Volume 20, Issue 4, pages 1512–1521. Birds 200. Mate Choice Trials - 435, 255 used females as the choosy/test bird, and 180 using males as the choosy sex. Influence of Head Colour on mate choice, females (n= 85) were presented with three males of the same morph-type as the female. In both experiments, approximately equal numbers of females expressing each head-colour (n=25 yellow; n=30 red; n=30 black) were used as the test birds. Similarly, in the male mate choice experiments, male preferences among (n=90 trials; n=30 of each morph) and within (n=90) different female head-colour morphs.

[iaos]

For anyone that is interested, it appears most of Sarah Prykes papers are freely available on her website

Cheers
Ian

http://sarahpryke.com/?page_id=11