No relationship between female emergence time from the roosting place and extrapair paternity

Schlicht, Lotte; Vâlcu, Mihai; Loës, Peter; Girg, Alexander; Kempenaers, Bart

doi:10.1093/beheco/aru035

Cited by 32 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…While our study necessarily collected timing data after the decision to lay eggs had been made, we believe that our findings are indicative of an individual's chronotype prior to nest initiation. Other studies, including in our study species, have also observed within year consistency in individual female awakening and nest departure times both during and outside the breeding season (Steinmeyer et al 2010;Schlicht et al 2014;Stuber et al 2015). In addition, onset of activity for 6 dark-eyed junco females in our study was collected during a known second nesting attempt.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Early to rise, early to breed: a role for daily rhythms in seasonal reproduction

et al. 2017

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Vertebrates use environmental cues to time reproduction to optimal breeding conditions. Numerous laboratory studies have revealed that light experienced during a critical window of the circadian (daily) rhythm can influence reproductive physiology. However, whether these relationships observed in captivity hold true under natural conditions and how they relate to observed variation in timing of reproductive output remains largely unexplored. Here we test the hypothesis that individual variation in daily timing recorded in nature (i.e. chronotype) is linked with variation in timing of breeding. To address this hypothesis and its generality across species, we recorded incubation behavior data to identify individual patterns in daily onset of activity for 2 temperate-breeding songbird species, the dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis aikeni) and the great tit (Parus major). We found that females who first departed from their nest earlier in the morning (earlier chronotype) also initiated nests earlier in the year. Date of data collection and ambient temperature had no effect, but stage of incubation influenced daily onset of activity in great tits. Our findings suggest a role for daily rhythms as one mechanism underlying the observed variation in seasonal timing of breeding.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Early to rise, early to breed: a role for daily rhythms in seasonal reproduction

et al. 2017

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“…Return latency and number of visits were square‐root transformed to improve model fit. Because females show marked delays in morning emergence and advances in roosting time once egg laying has commenced (Schlicht et al, ), we restricted these analyses to the period before laying started (thus excluding the day on which the first egg was laid).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposure to predator models during the fertile period leads to higher levels of extra‐pair paternity in blue tits

Santema

Vâlcu

Kempenaers

2019

Journal of Animal Ecology

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The perceived risk of predation can affect breeding behaviour and reduce reproductive success in prey species. Individuals exposed to predators may also adopt different mating tactics with potential consequences for the distribution of paternity in socially monogamous species that engage in extra‐pair copulations. We experimentally increased perceived predation risk during the fertile period in blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus. Every morning between nest completion and the onset of egg laying, we presented a model of either a predator or a non‐predator (control) near active nestboxes. Broods from pairs exposed to predators had higher levels of extra‐pair paternity than control broods. This mainly resulted from a higher proportion of extra‐pair offspring in broods with at least one extra‐pair young. Females exposed to predators first emerged from the nestbox later in the morning, stayed away from the nestbox for longer and were less likely to be visited at the nest by their social mate, but we detected no behavioural differences once the model was removed. Our results suggest that the higher rates of extra‐pair paternity resulted from the disruption of morning routines, which may have inhibited within‐pair copulations or increased opportunities for females to engage in extra‐pair copulations. We conclude that the perceived risk of predation can have substantial effects on levels of extra‐pair paternity.

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“…This suggests that carryover effects on the start of dawn singing are absent. Of course, the light treatment might still have led to a carryover effect on awakening time (see Schlicht et al, 2014). A similar pattern of light entrainment was found in a study of captive great tits: onset of activity gradually advanced during the illuminated days of the experimental period but it immediately returned to normal during the following control period ( For the robin, the estimated effect size in response to the experimental treatment (37 min; Table 1) was higher than the effect size previously reported in a correlational study conducted in the same general area (Da Silva et al 2014: mean and 95% CI: 19 min [9e29 min]), However, another correlational study showed an advance in the start of singing of 64 min under artificial light conditions (Kempenaers et al, 2010), and we note that in Da Silva et al (2014) some robins started singing before the recordings started (1.5 h before sunrise).…”

Section: ; Damentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If the experimental light had such an effect on the diel rhythm of individuals, we should observe a progressive return to natural times of dawn chorus initiation during consecutive dark days. Such carryover effects have been shown for the timing of emergence from the roost in female blue tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, that were experimentally exposed to night light (Schlicht, Valcu, Loes, Girg, & Kempenaers, 2014). We also tested whether the light effect becomes progressively stronger after the control 'treatment' (dark phase), and for simplicity also refer to this as a 'carryover' effect.…”

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confidence: 93%

Behavioural plasticity in the onset of dawn song under intermittent experimental night lighting

2016

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The disruption of daily rhythms is one of the most studied ecological consequences of light pollution. Previous work showed that several songbird species initiated dawn song earlier in areas with light pollution. However, the mechanisms underlying this shift are still unknown. Individuals may immediately adjust their timing of singing to the presence of artificial light (behavioural plasticity), but the observed effect may also be due to phenotype-dependent habitat choice, effects of conditions during early life or micro-evolution. The main aim of this study was to experimentally investigate how males of four common passerine species respond to day-to-day variation in the presence of artificial night lighting in terms of the timing of singing. During two consecutive breeding seasons, we manipulated the presence of light throughout the night in a cyclic fashion in several naturally undisturbed forest patches. We show that individuals of all four species immediately and reversibly adjusted their onset of dawn singing in response to artificial light. The effect was strongest in the European robin, but relatively small in the blue tit, the great tit and the blackbird. The effect in the latter two species was smaller than expected from the correlational studies. This may be coincidence (small sample size of this study), but it could also indicate that there are longer-term effects of living in light-polluted urban areas on timing of dawn singing, or that birds use compensatory behaviours such as light avoidance. We found no evidence that our light treatment had carryover effects into the subsequent dark period, but robins progressively advanced their dawn singing during the light treatment.

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No relationship between female emergence time from the roosting place and extrapair paternity

Cited by 32 publications

References 15 publications

Early to rise, early to breed: a role for daily rhythms in seasonal reproduction

Early to rise, early to breed: a role for daily rhythms in seasonal reproduction

Exposure to predator models during the fertile period leads to higher levels of extra‐pair paternity in blue tits

Behavioural plasticity in the onset of dawn song under intermittent experimental night lighting

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