Model species

Conducting experiments on humans isn't always possible. And even when it is possible, it can be time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with ethical and legal issues.

So scientists generally do their experiments on a model species: a species that's similar enough to a human, but cheap and disposable. Any number of fruit flies, lab rats, and guinea pigs have served in this role.

One area where scientists would like to carry out experiments on humans is mate selection. What characteristics do men and women care about? What are the trade-offs between those characteristics? And what happens when there are lots of men and women competing with each other - who ends up with who, and why?

The best approach for answering these questions — randomised control trials — is nearly impossible, so this is where a model species might come in handy. It would need to be cheap, readily available, and, most importantly, monogamous.

Our feathered friends

It turns out that many birds, such as pigeons, zebra finches, and budgerigars, meet those criteria, and indeed, the mating preferences of pigeons was investigated in the 1981 paper Mate Choice By Multiple Criteria in a Monogamous Species.

The paper found that lady pigeons prefer Blue Check plumage, then Blue Bar, then Ash Red last of all, while male pigeons prefer Blue Check and Blue Bar equally, and likewise turn up their beaks at the poor Ash Reds.

However, they're both willing to trade off their plumage preferences for other characteristics, such as age, experience, and dominance, and do so in a fairly consistent manner.

The study involved a small number of pigeons, but with more pigeon interaction data — and a bit of number crunching — it might be possible to build an algorithm to predict, a priori, which pigeons in a colony will pair up. And if that proved successful, perhaps we could adapt the algorithm to act as a matchmaker for humans.

In the same way that model species have been used to improve our health and wellbeing, maybe they could help us find love!