Do female great snipe copy each other's mate choice?

Models of female mate sampling assume that females independently assess the quality of individual males. However, several empirical studies indicate that this assumption may not hold true. Females may copy the mate choice of other females, for example to minimize the costs of mate sampling or to increase the benefits of mate choice. This study investigated if mate choice copying is likely to occur on great snipe, Gallinago media, leks. Whether the observed number of females mating in groups differed from a simulated number of females mating in groups, under the null hypothesis of no copying, was tested. There were no significant differences between the observed and simulated number of group mating females. Group matings were not more prevalent when many females mated on the lek, nor towards the end of the mating season, and were not correlated with male mating skew. The number of group mating females for different proportions of copiers in the population was simulated, and the results tested against the observed number of group matings. These simulations indicate that the proportion of copiers in the population was less than 0.2, and not significantly different from zero. It is concluded that mate choice copying is not an important factor in mate selection by female great snipe. (C) 1996 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour