Differential allocation in a lekking bird: females lay larger eggs and are more likely to have male chicks when they mate with less related males

Sardell, Rebecca J.

doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.2386

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…). Here we demonstrate inbreeding depression for males, but not females, and no inbreeding avoidance, results complemented elsewhere by evidence that maternal investment mitigates the fitness costs of sex‐specific inbreeding depression (Sardell & DuVal ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…Alternatively, Some suggest that inclusive fitness benefit from inbreeding may have prevented strong inbreeding avoidance via mate choice from evolving in many systems (Kokko & Ots 2006;Szulkin et al 2013). Here we demonstrate inbreeding depression for males, but not females, and no inbreeding avoidance, results complemented elsewhere by evidence that maternal investment mitigates the fitness costs of sex-specific inbreeding depression (Sardell & DuVal 2014).…”

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confidence: 80%

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Female mating preferences and offspring survival: testing hypotheses on the genetic basis of mate choice in a wild lekking bird

Sardell

Kempenaers

2014

Molecular Ecology

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Indirect benefits of mate choice result from increased offspring genetic quality and may be important drivers of female behaviour. 'Good-genes-for-viability' models predict that females prefer mates of high additive genetic value, such that offspring survival should correlate with male attractiveness. Mate choice may also vary with genetic diversity (e.g. heterozygosity) or compatibility (e.g. relatedness), where the female's genotype influences choice. The relative importance of these nonexclusive hypotheses remains unclear. Leks offer an excellent opportunity to test their predictions, because lekking males provide no material benefits and choice is relatively unconstrained by social limitations. Using 12 years of data on lekking lance-tailed manakins, Chiroxiphia lanceolata, we tested whether offspring survival correlated with patterns of mate choice. Offspring recruitment weakly increased with father attractiveness (measured as reproductive success, RS), suggesting attractive males provide, if anything, only minor benefits via offspring viability. Both male RS and offspring survival until fledging increased with male heterozygosity. However, despite parent-offspring correlation in heterozygosity, offspring survival was unrelated to its own or maternal heterozygosity or to parental relatedness, suggesting survival was not enhanced by heterozygosity per se. Instead, offspring survival benefits may reflect inheritance of specific alleles or nongenetic effects. Although inbreeding depression in male RS should select for inbreeding avoidance, mates were not less related than expected under random mating. Although mate heterozygosity and relatedness were correlated, selection on mate choice for heterozygosity appeared stronger than that for relatedness and may be the primary mechanism maintaining genetic variation in this system despite directional sexual selection.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

supporting

confidence: 80%

Female mating preferences and offspring survival: testing hypotheses on the genetic basis of mate choice in a wild lekking bird

Sardell

Kempenaers

2014

Molecular Ecology

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“…Berkeley & Linklater (2010) Laying/hatch order Cichon, Dubiec & Stoczko (2003), Lezalova et al (2005) and Lislevand et al (2005) Clutch size Benito et al (2013) and Bowers et al (2014) Social dominance rank (maternal) Nevison (1997) and Maestripieri (2002); meta-analyses: Brown & Silk (2002), Schino (2004) and Silk et al (2005) Parental relatedness/compatibility Pryke & Griffith (2009) and Sardell & DuVal (2014) Parental age/breeding experience/pair bond duration Green (2002) and Benito et al (2013) Female mating status/extent of polygyny (sole/primary/secondary female, harem size) Weatherhead (1983), Nishiumi (1998) and Trnka et al (2012) Examples are given of empirical studies that report a significant effect of the factor; note that for all factors we also located studies that find no relationship. References to meta-analyses are provided where possible.…”

Section: Rainfallmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facultative adjustment of the offspring sex ratio and male attractiveness: a systematic review and meta-analysis

et al. 2015

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Females can benefit from mate choice for male traits (e.g. sexual ornaments or body condition) that reliably signal the effect that mating will have on mean offspring fitness. These male-derived benefits can be due to material and/or genetic effects. The latter include an increase in the attractiveness, hence likely mating success, of sons. Females can potentially enhance any sex-biased benefits of mating with certain males by adjusting the offspring sex ratio depending on their mate's phenotype. One hypothesis is that females should produce mainly sons when mating with more attractive or higher quality males. Here we perform a meta-analysis of the empirical literature that has accumulated to test this hypothesis. The mean effect size was small (r = 0.064-0.095; i.e. explaining <1% of variation in offspring sex ratios) but statistically significant in the predicted direction. It was, however, not robust to correction for an apparent publication bias towards significantly positive results. We also examined the strength of the relationship using different indices of male attractiveness/quality that have been invoked by researchers (ornaments, behavioural displays, female preference scores, body condition, male age, body size, and whether a male is a within-pair or extra-pair mate). Only ornamentation and body size significantly predicted the proportion of sons produced. We obtained similar results regardless of whether we ran a standard random-effects meta-analysis, or a multi-level, Bayesian model that included a correction for phylogenetic non-independence. A moderate proportion of the variance in effect sizes (51.6-56.2%) was due to variation that was not attributable to sampling error (i.e. sample size). Much of this non-sampling error variance was not attributable to phylogenetic effects or high repeatability of effect sizes among species. It was approximately equally attributable to differences (occurring for unknown reasons) in effect sizes among and within studies (25.3, 22.9% of the total variance). There were no significant effects of year of publication or two aspects of study design (experimental/observational or field/laboratory) on reported effect sizes. We discuss various practical reasons and theoretical arguments as to why small effect sizes should be expected, and why there might be relatively high variation among studies. Currently, there are no species where replicated, experimental studies show that mothers adjust the offspring sex ratio in response to a generally preferred male phenotype. Ultimately, we need more experimental studies that test directly whether females produce more sons when mated to relatively more attractive males, and that provide the requisite evidence that their sons have higher mean fitness than their daughters.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The other feasible adaptive explanation would be that breeding females adjust the sex of their offspring according to their context, but this explanation also was not supported by our results. We tested the influence of five potential correlates of brood sex ratio, each of which (or a related trait) has been demonstrated to influence sex determination in other species (Griffin, Sheldon, & West, 2005;Howe, 1977;Komdeur et al, 1997;Sardell & DuVal, 2014; Woxvold TA B L E 1 Effect estimates on the logit scale from potential predictors of brood sex ratios in riflemen, modeled as fixed effects in a binomially-distributed generalized linear mixed-effects model, with the proportion of male offspring in a brood as the response variable (n = 80 broods). Pair identity (variance component < 0.01) nested within female identity (variance component < 0.01) was included as a random effect along with breeding season (variance component < 0.01).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the predictions of sex allocation hypotheses in dimorphic, cooperatively breeding riflemen

Khwaja

Preston

Briskie

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Evolutionary theory predicts that parents should invest equally in the two sexes. If one sex is more costly, a production bias is predicted in favour of the other. Two well‐studied causes of differential costs are size dimorphism, in which the larger sex should be more costly, and sex‐biased helping in cooperative breeders, in which the more helpful sex should be less costly because future helping “repays” some of its parents’ investment. We studied a bird species in which both processes should favor production of males. Female riflemen Acanthisitta chloris are larger than males, and we documented greater provisioning effort in more female‐biased broods indicating they are likely costlier to raise. Riflemen are also cooperative breeders, and males provide more help than females. Contrary to expectations, we observed no male bias in brood sex ratios, which did not differ significantly from parity. We tested whether the lack of a population‐wide pattern was a result of facultative sex allocation by individual females, but this hypothesis was not supported either. Our results show an absence of adaptive patterns despite a clear directional hypothesis derived from theory. This appears to be associated with a suboptimal female‐biased investment ratio. We conclude that predictions of adaptive sex allocation may falter because of mechanistic constraint, unrecognized costs and benefits, or weak selection.

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Differential allocation in a lekking bird: females lay larger eggs and are more likely to have male chicks when they mate with less related males

Cited by 19 publications

References 58 publications

Female mating preferences and offspring survival: testing hypotheses on the genetic basis of mate choice in a wild lekking bird

Female mating preferences and offspring survival: testing hypotheses on the genetic basis of mate choice in a wild lekking bird

Facultative adjustment of the offspring sex ratio and male attractiveness: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Testing the predictions of sex allocation hypotheses in dimorphic, cooperatively breeding riflemen

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