Female survival, lifetime reproductive success and mating status in a passerine bird

Abstract

In facultatively polygynous birds, secondary females of polygynously mated males typically have reduced annual reproductive success, because polygynous males provide less paternal care than monogamous males. Life history theory predicts that, as a result of increased reproductive investment, secondary females should suffer from reduced survival and lifetime reproductive success, but previous studies provided only weak support for this hypothesis. We used 7 years of data to study the fitness of female collared flycatchers Ficedula albicollis in relation to mating status by estimating survival and lifetime reproductive success. Taking differences in recapture probability into account, a mark-recapture analysis revealed that females observed at least once to breed as secondary female had higher survival than other females. This relationship was not confounded by laying date, because when we assessed the impact of laying date on survival, we found similar survival patterns. Females of polygynous males had reduced breeding success in terms of number of young fledged during the current reproductive event. However, during their lifetime females found at least once in primary or secondary mating status produced significantly more eggs, and at least the same number of fledglings and recruits as monogamous females. Thus, in the collared flycatcher, females of polygynously mated males seem to suffer from mating status during the most recent reproductive event, but considering survival and lifetime reproductive success, the apparently disadvantageous mating event is not necessarily associated with reduced residual reproductive value.

Lifetime offspring production in relation to breeding lifespan, attractiveness, and mating status in male collared flycatchers

“…Král et al (1996) found that males that had two mates divided their parental investment between the two nests, with most effort devoted to the primary (i.e., the firsthatching) brood, which may increase LRS compared to monogamy. In contrast, both primary and secondary nest experience similarly reduced reproductive success in our population (Garamszegi et al 2004), so the positive effect of polygyny on LRS should be weaker.…”

“…However, this increase may not be very large in cases when the reduced male help impairs the success of the secondary or both females (Slagsvold and Lifjeld 1994;Garamszegi et al 2004). Our results imply that polygynous males realized a higher LRS only because of their longer lifespans, or some attribute related to lifespan.…”

“…That study found that polygyny increased lifetime success irrespective of lifespan (Gustafsson 1989). In our collared flycatcher population, which lives in more variable environmental conditions , the situation is different (also see Garamszegi et al 2004).…”

“…We measured the LRS as the number of lifetime recruits, and examined how individual variation in LRS was explained by differences in breeding lifespan. We were also interested in how the lifetime success was impacted by body size, forehead patch size (a sexually selected character; Hegyi et al 2002), and polygyny, which is a regularly encountered reproductive status of males (Garamszegi et al 2004). …”

Female collared flycatchers adjust yolk testosterone to male age, but not to attractiveness

“…One of the explanations may be that the correlation reflects a female's adaptive response to the likely lower quality of paternal care that young males might provide for their nestlings. Paternal care is important for reproductive success of collared flycatchers as indicated by reduced success of widowed or secondary females of polygynous males (Garamszegi et al, 2004a;Török et al, 1999). Young males often feed their nestlings less than do older males, possibly because they have lower foraging and feeding skills (Marchetti and Price, 1989), lack paternal experience (Forslund and Pärt, 1995), or are less willing to invest into current reproduction (CluttonBrock, 1991).…”