Aggressive behavior of the male parent predicts brood sex ratio in a songbird

Szász, Eszter; Garamszegi, László Zsolt; Hegyi, Gergely; Szöllősi, Eszter; Markó, Gábor; Török, János; Rosivall, Balázs

doi:10.1007/s00114-014-1204-0

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 51 publications

(74 reference statements)

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“…Indeed, a recent study of our population found that females overproduced the less demanding sex of offspring when mated to large‐patched males (Szász et al . ). Males with larger wing patches feed females less during incubation, which may cause the females to incubate less effectively due to a nutritional constraint (Royama ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Mutual ornamentation and the parental behaviour of male and female Collared Flycatchers Ficedula albicollis during incubation

Kötél

Laczi

Török

et al. 2016

Ibis

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One of the benefits of mate choice based on sexually selected traits is the greater investment of more ornamented individuals in parental care. The choosy individual can also adjust its parental investment to the sexual signals of its partner. Incubation is an important stage of avian reproduction, but the relationship between behaviour during incubation and mutual ornamentation is unclear. Studying a population of Collared Flycatchers Ficedula albicollis, we monitored the behaviour of both sexes during incubation in relation to their own and their partner's plumage traits, including plumage-level reflectance attributes and white patch sizes. There was a marginally positive relationship between male feeding rate during incubation and female incubation rate. Female but not male behavioural traits were associated with the laying date of the first egg and clutch size. The behaviour of the two sexes jointly determined the relative hatching speed of clutches and the hatching success of eggs. Females with larger white wing patches spent less time incubating eggs and left the nestbox more frequently. Males with larger white wing patches fed females less frequently, whereas males with brighter white plumage areas visited the nestbox more regularly without feeding. Females tended to leave the nest less often when mated to males with larger wing patches, and females spent less time incubating when males had more UV chromatic plumage. The behaviour of both partners during incubation therefore predicted hatching patterns and was correlated with their own and sometimes with their partner's plumage ornamentation. These results call for further studies of mutual ornamentation and reproductive effort during incubation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Mutual ornamentation and the parental behaviour of male and female Collared Flycatchers Ficedula albicollis during incubation

Kötél

Laczi

Török

et al. 2016

Ibis

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“…A link between courtship and parental behaviour of males is also suggested indirectly by several empirical studies that found behavioural traits to play roles in mate choice (Otter and Ratcliffe 1996;Ophir and Galef 2003;Ophir et al 2005;Kunc et al 2006), differential allocation (Gwinner and Schwabl 2005;Grenna et al 2014) or sex allocation (Ramsay et al 2003;Szász et al 2014).…”

Section: Communicated By K Van Oersmentioning

confidence: 81%

Nest-site defence aggression during courtship does not predict nestling provisioning in male collared flycatchers

Szász

Markó

Hegyi

et al. 2019

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Individuals of many animal species show consistent differences in ecologically relevant behaviours, and these individual-specific behaviours can correlate with each other. In passerines, aggression during nest-site defence is one of those behaviours that have been steadily found to be repeatable within individuals. Furthermore, in several cases, aggression was related to some estimates of reproductive investment. Here, we studied the possibility that behaviour of males toward a male rival predicts the amount of their future parental care. This could be beneficial to the females, because during mate choice, they could use male aggressive behaviour as a cue for parental quality. We performed the study by video recording the nestling feeding activity of male collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) that were assayed for aggression during the courtship period. The level of aggression was not related to feeding rate in males. Feeding rate of males differed between the study years, but it did not correlate with the feeding rate of their mates, neither was it related to the morphological traits of the parents. We may conclude that nest-site defence aggression of males does not predict their parental commitment. This may be surprising given that higher testosterone levels that may be expected in aggressive males often suppress parental care. However, among-individual variance in male testosterone profiles found to be decrease from the courtship to the parenting period in flycatchers, and this may explain why differences in territorial aggression did not manifest in differences in nestling provisioning. The correlation between behaviours that are expressed in distinct periods of the annual cycle of songbirds needs further investigation. Significance statement Male songbirds, when attracting mates, are often confronted with each other over nest-sites, and these male-male confrontations may be witnessed by females. If performance during territory defence predicts the quality of parental care that a male will provide for its nestlings, females could use defence behaviour as a cue for mate choice. To explore this possibility, we investigated the relationship between territorial aggression and nestling feeding activity of male collared flycatchers. We performed simulated territorial intrusions to measure the aggression of males and recorded their nestling feeding rate about a month later. We found that territorial aggression did not correlate with nestling feeding rate. This suggests that nest-site defence behaviour in the beginning of the breeding season does not carry information for females about what to expect from potential mates in terms of parental care.

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“…In a Hungarian population of the species, none of the measured phenotypic traits of the male parent was related to brood sex ratio, but broods became more male-biased as the breeding season progressed (Rosivall et al 2004). Another study in this population, found a reverse seasonal pattern, and revealed that certain phenotypic traits (territorial aggressiveness and body size) of the male parent were also related to brood sex ratio (Szász et al 2014). Finally, in a Czech collared flycatcher population, the proportion of sons in the brood was positively correlated with the investment capacity of the parents and the size of the white wing patch of the male (Bowers et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…correlative studies on wild songbird populations). The database of the most recent meta-analysis (Booksmythe et al 2015) included all but four studies from our database (Poláková et al 2012, Szász et al 2014, Romano et al 2015, Bonderud et al 2016.…”

Section: Literature Searchmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is behind the variation in mate quality dependent sex ratio adjustment? – A meta‐analysis

Szász

Garamszegi

Rosivall

2018

Oikos

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Theory predicts that parents adjust the sex ratio of their brood to the sexually selected traits of their mate because the reproductive success of sons may be more dependent on inherited paternal attractiveness than that of daughters. Empirical studies vary in terms of whether they support the theory, and this variation has often been regarded as evidence against sex ratio adjustment or has been ascribed to methodological differences. Applying phylogenetic meta‐analyses, we aimed to find biological explanations for the variation observed in songbirds. In particular, we tested the role extra‐pair paternity, because infidelity occurs in the majority of these species and may reduce the adaptive value of adjusting brood sex ratio to the phenotype of the social mate. However, we found that the variation in effect sizes was unrelated to the proportion of extra‐pair paternity. Thus future studies should consider that mate quality dependent sex ratio adjustment may be driven by direct (material) rather than indirect (genetic) benefits. We also tested if the effect sizes are influenced by whether the focal male trait is indeed under sexual selection as it is assumed by the sex allocation theory. We found that for male traits with proven role in sexual selection, effect sizes significantly differed from the null expectation of random production of sons and daughters. For male traits with only presumed sexual role in sexual selection, the deviation from the null expectation was less convincing, and the effect sizes were significantly smaller. This result indicates that studies that neglect the assumptions of the hypotheses concerned, may lead to the underestimation of the mean effect size and, eventually, false conclusions.

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Aggressive behavior of the male parent predicts brood sex ratio in a songbird

Cited by 11 publications

References 51 publications

Mutual ornamentation and the parental behaviour of male and female Collared Flycatchers Ficedula albicollis during incubation

Mutual ornamentation and the parental behaviour of male and female Collared Flycatchers Ficedula albicollis during incubation

Nest-site defence aggression during courtship does not predict nestling provisioning in male collared flycatchers

What is behind the variation in mate quality dependent sex ratio adjustment? – A meta‐analysis

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