Male sexual attractiveness and parental effort in blue tits: a test of the differential allocation hypothesis

Johnsen, Arild; Delhey, Kaspar; Schlicht, Emmi; Peters, Anne; Kempenaers, Bart

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.01.005

Cited by 90 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…In this way, we recorded the time at which a bird entered or left the nest. From these recordings, following a procedure similar to that of Johnsen et al (2005), we extracted feeding rates. We found a strong correlation between parental feeding rates estimated with videotape recording and those obtained by means of this system (García-Navas et al 2009).…”

Section: Monitoring Parental Effortmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and Within-Nest Factors Influencing Nestling-Feeding Patterns of Mediterranean Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)

García‐Navas

Sanz

2012

The Condor

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Abstract. The rate at which parent birds deliver food to their young may depend on several factors, both intrinsic (e.g., brood demand) and extrinsic (e.g., time of day). Using PIT tags, we determined patterns of nestling provisioning in the Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) and the proximate factors affecting them. Over 3 years, we monitored the rates of provisioning by Blue Tits in two types of forest (evergreen and deciduous) in Cabañeros National Park (Spain). Pairs breeding in the deciduous forest visited the nest at rates higher than did those in the evergreen forest. Contrary to expectation, males fed their offspring more than females did, and the rates of feeding were positively related to those of the social partner. Sex roles in provisioning were consistent through the day, suggesting that parents did not work in concert. Provisioning rates also tended to decline through the day and were negatively correlated with ambient temperature. In females, but not in males, the adult's body condition was negatively related to provisioning effort. There was no relationship between nestlings' condition and parental provisioning rates. We found a strong correlation between hourly feeding rates and the total number of feedings registered over a 24-hr period, which indicates that short-term samples are representative of what occurs over a longer time. Overall, our study represents a significant contribution to the understanding of proximate factors influencing parental provisioning strategies in altricial birds with biparental care.Key words: diurnal variation, feeding rates, nestling provisioning, parental care, RFID, transponder. Factores Ambientales y Sociales que Influyen en los Patrones de Aprovisionamiento de las Crías de Cyanistes caeruleusResumen. La frecuencia con la cual las aves proporcionan alimento a sus crías puede depender de varios factores, tanto intrínsecos (e.g., demanda de la nidada) como extrínsecos (e.g., hora del día). Aquí, nosotros determinamos los patrones de aprovisionamiento de Cyanistes caeruleus y los factores próximos que los determinan mediante el uso de microchips. Durante un período de estudio de 3 años, seguimos las tasas de aprovisionamiento de C. caeruleus en dos tipos de bosque (un hábitat esclerófilo y otro deciduo) dentro del Parque Nacional de Cabañeros (España central). Las parejas que crían en el bosque deciduo visitaron el nido a tasas más elevadas que aquellas que lo hicieron en el bosque esclerófilo. En contra de lo esperado, los machos alimentaron a su descendencia con mayor frecuencia que las hembras y sus tasas de alimentación se relacionaron positivamente con las de su pareja. El papel de los sexos en el aprovisionamiento de los polluelos fue consistente durante el transcurso del día, sugiriendo que los padres no realizan dicha labor de forma coordinada. Las tasas de aprovisionamiento tendieron a disminuir con el progreso de la jornada y se relacionaron de forma negativa con la temperatura ambiente. En las hembras, pero no así en los machos, la condición corporal de los ...

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Section: Monitoring Parental Effortmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and Within-Nest Factors Influencing Nestling-Feeding Patterns of Mediterranean Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)

García‐Navas

Sanz

2012

The Condor

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“…Since males did not provision nestlings less when paired to females whose plumage brightness had been reduced and females fed nestlings at a similar rate regardless of their plumage brightness treatment, it is difficult to reconcile why nestlings reared in the treatment where female plumage brightness was reduced and brood size was enlarged grew shorter ninth primary flight feathers and were less likely to fledge ( unlikely that the plumage treatment directly affected female behaviour since the application of these markers and silicone paste have been used previously with no reported adverse effects on behaviour or feather quality (Ballentine and Hill, 2003;Johnsen et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2007), it is possible that the altered plumage brightness influenced social interactions among females, and the feedback females received from these interactions influenced their behaviour or physiology (reviewed in Vitousek et al, 2014b). This social mechanism has been proposed to explain the increased and decreased levels of androgens in male and female barn swallows (Hirundo rustica erythrogaster), respectively, the week following an experimental darkening of their ventral plumage (Safran et al, 2008;Vitousek et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Briefly, I evenly applied to the dorsal feathers a non-toxic permanent blue marker to enhance or silicon paste to reduce the plumage brightness of females; control females were treated in the same manner, but the marker used contained water. The markers and silicone paste I used in my study have been used previously in other studies to manipulate plumage colour (e.g., Safran et al, 2005;Johnsen et al, 2005), and I was confident that my treatment produced the desired effect throughout the experimental period because the effects of these markers and paste have been detected for on average 15 days after their application (Johnsen et al, 2005). After the plumage brightness treatment, the brightness of female plumage fell within the natural range for female tree swallows at my study area (Berzins and Dawson, 2016).…”

Section: Study Area and General Field Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Permanent markers and silicone paste have previously been used to alter plumage colour (e.g., Johnsen et al, 2005;Safran et al, 2008) and since the effects of these treatments have been detected on average for 15 days after being applied to feathers (Johnsen et al, 2005), I…”

Section: Study Area and General Field Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I was confident that my treatment would produce the desired effect throughout the study since these permanent markers and silicone paste have been used previously (Ballentine and Hill, 2003;Johnsen et al, 2005;Safran et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2007), and the effects can still be detected on average 15 days after manipulation (Johnsen et al, 2005). I tested the effectiveness of my treatment in the laboratory by measuring plumage characteristics (see below for more details) before and after the application of permanent marker or silicon paste to rump and back feathers collected from females that were not part of the present study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Determinants of making success in female Tree Swallows (Tachycineta Bicolor)

Berzins¹

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Females from a wide variety of taxa display elaborate ornaments and aggressive behaviours that are similar to those expressed by males. Although recent empirical investigation has demonstrated that ornamental traits and behaviours of females may function by attracting mates or signalling competitive ability when competing against conspecifics for access to mates and resources, less is known about how such traits influence the mating success of free-living female birds. For my research, I experimentally examined how variation in plumage brightness and behaviour of female tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) influenced their mating success.Plumage brightness of females had no influence on investment in parental care or mating strategies of males, or the quality of social mate paired to the female. These results suggest that bright plumage is not a signal of attractiveness preferred by male tree swallows.In contrast, I report evidence that plumage brightness of female tree swallows is involved in agonistic interactions with conspecifics. Females whose plumage brightness was enhanced to signal high quality were less able to retain their nest site than females whose plumage brightness was reduced to signal low quality. This suggests that females displaying bright plumage may be challenged by conspecifics of high quality to test the quality signalled by bright plumage, and is supported by the finding that females displaying enhanced plumage brightness suffered social costs, such as delaying breeding and producing low-quality nestlings. Despite these costs, females in the enhanced plumage brightness treatment mated with extra-pair males that were higher quality than their social mate.Behaviour of females, manipulated by elevating testosterone (T), lowered the proportion of extra-pair offspring in the broods of T-treated females. Females manipulated so that the androgenic and estrogenic actions of T were blocked also produced fewer extra-pair iii offspring, and suggest that the androgenic and/or estrogenic actions of T influence extra-pair copulation behavior of female tree swallows. In conclusion, my results show that plumage brightness and behaviour of female tree swallows influence their mating success, and highlight the importance of studies experimentally manipulating ornamental and behavioural traits of free-living female birds prior to breeding.iv

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How to quantify animal activity from radio‐frequency identification (RFID) recordings

Iserbyt

Griffioen

Borremans

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Automated animal monitoring via radio‐frequency identification (RFID) technology allows efficient and extensive data sampling of individual activity levels and is therefore commonly used for ecological research. However, processing RFID data is still a largely unresolved problem, which potentially leads to inaccurate estimates for behavioral activity. One of the major challenges during data processing is to isolate independent behavioral actions from a set of superfluous, nonindependent detections. As a case study, individual blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) were simultaneously monitored during reproduction with both video recordings and RFID technology. We demonstrated how RFID data can be processed based on the time spent in‐ and outside a nest box. We then validated the number and timing of nest visits obtained from the processed RFID dataset by calibration against video recordings. The video observations revealed a limited overlap between the time spent in‐ and outside the nest box, with the least overlap at 23 s for both sexes. We then isolated exact arrival times from redundant RFID registrations by erasing all successive registrations within 23 s after the preceding registration. After aligning the processed RFID data with the corresponding video recordings, we observed a high accuracy in three behavioral estimates of parental care (individual nest visit rates, within‐pair alternation and synchronization of nest visits). We provide a clear guideline for future studies that aim to implement RFID technology in their research. We argue that our suggested RFID data processing procedure improves the precision of behavioral estimates, despite some inevitable drawbacks inherent to the technology. Our method is useful, not only for other cavity breeding birds, but for a wide range of (in)vertebrate species that are large enough to be fitted with a tag and that regularly pass near or through a fixed antenna.

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Male sexual attractiveness and parental effort in blue tits: a test of the differential allocation hypothesis

Cited by 90 publications

References 33 publications

Environmental and Within-Nest Factors Influencing Nestling-Feeding Patterns of Mediterranean Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)

Environmental and Within-Nest Factors Influencing Nestling-Feeding Patterns of Mediterranean Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus)

Determinants of making success in female Tree Swallows (Tachycineta Bicolor)

How to quantify animal activity from radio‐frequency identification (RFID) recordings

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