Polygyny and its fitness consequences for primary and secondary female pied flycatchers

Abstract

In polygynous species with biparental care, the amount of paternal support often varies considerably. In the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), females mated with monogamous males receive more male assistance during the nestling phase than females mated with bigynous males, as the latter have to share their mates with another female. Bigynous males, however, give more support to their primary broods than to their secondary broods. Using a long-term dataset (31 years), the present study revealed that direct reproductive success, i.e. number of fledglings, was lower in females that mated with bigynous males, especially in secondary broods without male assistance, than in females that mated with monogamous males. Secondary broods with male assistance were more affected than primary broods. Female survival was independent of mating status. In primary broods, a delayed compensation for inferior direct reproductive success was found in terms of the number of grandoffspring, a phenomenon that did not occur in secondary broods. Delayed compensation in primary broods refers to indirect effects, i.e. good genes. According to the sexy son hypothesis, genetically superior (i.e. sexy) males may have sons with a higher number of broods belonging to a polygynous breeding status than do sons from broods with a monogamous father. This was indeed the case for sons descending from primary broods, but not for sons descending from secondary broods.

The influence of phenology on double-brooding and polygyny incidence in the Sedge Warbler Acrocephalus schoenobaenus

“…This means that late females chose to be secondary partners of early-arriving (albeit already-mated) males of the highest quality and actually preferred this option to being the first females of inferior late males (Zając et al 2008b). This conforms to the results of Huk and Winkel's (2006) analysis of the long-term dataset for the European Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca, which led the authors to conclude that the cost of polygyny might be compensated indirectly, i.e. by good genes.…”

“…The classic polygyny threshold model of female settlement (Verner 1964;Verner and Willson 1966;Orians 1969) predicts that early females choose the best territories and the best males. Good territories are no longer available for late-arriving females, but they can still mate with early-arriving high-quality males (Huk and Winkel 2006). However, the decision to mate as a second polygynous female may result in some disadvantages in terms of fitness (Searcy and Yasukawa 1989;Bensch 1997).…”

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

“…This explanation could easily apply in our population, where the unpredictable among-year fluctuations in food availability even prevent the individual optimization of clutch size . Finally, fitness benefits to polygynous males may also appear in the attractiveness of their offspring (Gwinner and Schwabl 2005;Huk and Winkel 2006), which will increase the number of grandoffspring, a variable we did not assess here. Even data from the Swedish population did not suggest a reproductive advantage for the offspring of polygynous males (Gustafsson and Qvarnström 2006), which makes such an advantage unlikely in our population.…”

Breeding success and brood parasitism affect return rate and dispersal distances in the great reed warbler

“…We expect that the costs imposed by host social status might decrease return rate and protract dispersal distances, because polygynous males allocate their parental investment to more broods compared with monogamous males and secondary females consequently suffer from reduced male assistance (e.g. Catchpole et al 1985;Lundberg and Alatalo 1992;Huk and Winkel 2006).…”