Local Environment but Not Genetic Differentiation Influences Biparental Care in Ten Plover Populations

Abstract

Social behaviours are highly variable between species, populations and individuals. However, it is contentious whether behavioural variations are primarily moulded by the environment, caused by genetic differences, or a combination of both. Here we establish that biparental care, a complex social behaviour that involves rearing of young by both parents, differs between closely related populations, and then test two potential sources of variation in parental behaviour between populations: ambient environment and genetic differentiation. We use 2904 hours behavioural data from 10 geographically distinct Kentish (Charadrius alexandrinus) and snowy plover (C. nivosus) populations in America, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to test these two sources of behavioural variation. We show that local ambient temperature has a significant influence on parental care: with extreme heat (above 40°C) total incubation (i.e. % of time the male or female incubated the nest) increased, and female share (% female share of incubation) decreased. By contrast, neither genetic differences between populations, nor geographic distances predicted total incubation or female's share of incubation. These results suggest that the local environment has a stronger influence on a social behaviour than genetic differentiation, at least between populations of closely related species.

The population determines whether and how life-history traits vary between reproductive events in an insect with maternal care

“…This is the case, for instance, for offspring mass and number in the scorpion Centruroides vittatus (Brown and Formanowicz 1995), for the juveniles' development and survival in the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata (Diamantidis et al 2011), and for the level of parental care in the Kentish plover Charadrius alexandrinus and the snowy plover C. nivosus (Vincze et al 2013). In earwigs, our results do not only demonstrate that each population is characterised by a specific proportion of females producing two clutches under identical (laboratory) conditions (see also Wirth et al 1998;, but also that the population determines whether and how certain life-history traits differ between initial and terminal clutches.…”

“…For instance, low food intake has been shown to inhibit the expression of terminal investment by females of the Alpine chamois Rupicapra rupicapra (Mason et al 2011), whereas food restriction and pathogen presence favoured its expression in males of the yellow mealworm beetle Tenebrio molitor (Krams et al 2015) and of the blue-footed booby Sula nebouxii (Velando et al 2006), respectively. Although environmental constraints often vary between populations, the occurrence of population-specific differences in the life-history traits expressed by individuals from early and late cohorts remains surprisingly poorly studied (see Mason et al 2011;Javoiš 2013;Vincze et al 2013).…”

North or south? Phylogenetic and biogeographic origins of a globally distributed avian clade

“…This group is emerging as an ideal model for studying the evolution of a range of phenotypic traits including breeding systems, migration strategies and plumage (Argüelles-Ticó, 2011;Owens et al, 1995;van de Kam et al, 2004), yet to date, studies on the genus Charadrius have only focused on microevolutionary patterns, investigating just one or a few closely related species (e.g. Székely et al, 2004b;Vincze et al, 2013). This updated phylogeny which largely shows agreement of molecular and phenotypic characters in the genus Charadrius provides a more robust framework to enable larger scale investigations into macroevolutionary changes within the clade.…”

Effects of Extreme Weather on Reproductive Success in a Temperate-Breeding Songbird

“…Traditionally, meteorological conditions were included into the studies of reproductive success mostly as background variables [15], and the effects of weather per se on individuals or populations have been rarely studied up to recently [16–19]. Despite the recognized need for predicting the effects of increasing weather extremities [2,20], such effects are investigated mostly in connection with human health [3,21,22], whereas we know very little about the ability of animals to cope with such conditions [23].…”