Extra-pair paternity in the socially monogamous white stork (Ciconia ciconia) is fairly common and independent of local density

Abstract

Although many birds are socially monogamous, most (>75%) studied species are not strictly genetically monogamous, especially under high breeding density. We used molecular tools to reevaluate the reproductive strategy of the socially monogamous white stork (Ciconia ciconia) and examined local density effects. DNA samples of nestlings (Germany, Spain) were genotyped and assigned relationships using a two-program maximum likelihood classification. Relationships were successfully classified in 79.2% of German (n = 120) and 84.8% of Spanish (n = 59) nests. For each population respectively, 76.8% (n = 73) and 66.0% (n = 33) of nests contained only full-siblings, 10.5% (n = 10) and 18.0% (n = 9) had half-siblings (at least one nestling with a different parent), 3.2% (n = 3) and 10.0% (n = 5) had unrelated nestlings (at least two nestlings, each with different parents), and 9.5% (n = 9) and 6.0% (n = 3) had “not full-siblings” (could not differentiate between latter two cases). These deviations from strict monogamy place the white stork in the 59th percentile for extra-pair paternity among studied bird species. Although high breeding density generally increases extra-pair paternity, we found no significant association with this species’ mating strategies. Thus although genetic monogamy is indeed prominent in the white stork, extra-pair paternity is fairly common compared to other bird species and cannot be explained by breeding density.

Sex ratio bias and shared paternity reduce individual fitness and population viability in a critically endangered parrot

“…We followed the two‐program congruency approach described in Turjeman et al. () to determine relationships among nestlings. First, we used the software program ml‐relate (Kalinowski, Wagner, & Taper, ) to determine the most likely pairwise relationships.…”

“…We used the following relationship categories for pairwise relatedness between siblings in each software: full‐siblings (FS), half‐siblings (HS), unrelated (U), not full‐siblings (NFS; where “full‐siblings” relationship could be rejected but differentiation between the categories of “half‐siblings” and “unrelated” could not be made) and non‐conclusive (NC) cases where conclusions could not be reached. For both software programs, we used the settings described in (Turjeman et al., ). When ML‐RELATE and COLONY 2 did not give the same results, we used the following rules: (a) when ML‐RELATE showed an NFS relationship and COLONY 2 showed a HS, we accepted HS; (b) when ML‐RELATE showed NC, we accepted the COLONY 2 result.…”

Certainty of paternity in two coucal species with divergent sex roles: the devil takes the hindmost

“…In a second and third step we used Cervus v3.0.7 [ 103 ] and Colony2 v2.0.6.2 [ 104 ] to conduct comprehensive parentage and sibship analyses, for each coucal species separately, by including all the sampled adults and offspring from 2001 until 2016. For clutches in which we failed to sample the social fathers ( N = 66 for black coucals; N = 15 for white-browed coucals), we employed a sibship approach (implemented in Colony2 ) to check whether the offspring were sired by one or by multiple males, resulting in a conservative proxy for extra-pair paternity [ 105 , 106 ]. Further, we used GERUD2.0 [ 107 ] to check and confirm the sibship results obtained by Colony2 for the clutches which we failed to sample the social fathers .…”

Winter associations predict social and extra-pair mating patterns in a wild songbird

“…male body size [11]; female body condition [12]; male age [13]; sperm morphology [14]; male song characteristics [15]; male plumage [16]; but see [17,18]) or in ecological conditions (e.g. breeding synchrony [19]; breeding density [20]; but see [21,22]). Yet, despite much research, our ability to explain or predict patterns of EPP remains limited.…”