Possible reproductive benefits to female Carpetan rock lizards of pre-sensory bias towards chemical signals

Female Carpetan rock lizards (Iberolacerta cyreni) might assess the quality of males from their chemical signals. Females select areas scent marked by males with secretions containing high proportions of provitamin D to ensure mating with high-quality males. However, an alternative explanation might be that females are not choosing a mate, but that females have a pre-sensory bias for chemical cues of vitamin D in the food and are, in fact, assessing habitat quality to obtain direct benefits of increasing the intake of vitamin D. We evaluated experimentally the possible benefits of a nutritional supplement of provitamin D or vitamin D in pregnant females for their clutches and offspring. However, we did not find large differences between treatments, except in the lower body condition of juveniles of mothers supplemented with provitamin D. We also tested the chemosensory interest of females in the scent of males to study the existence of a sensory bias; this response decreased when the amount of dietary vitamin D exceeded their needs. The results suggest that there are no reproductive benefits in the intake of additional vitamin D and that the potential sensory bias to scents of males could be related to the physiological needs of the females.