Regulation of incubation behavior in Black Brant

Abstract

We assessed the influence of climatic, environmental, and biological factors on nest attentiveness of female Black Brant (Branta bernicla nigricans). Within females, nest attentiveness varied significantly with time of day, rainfall, ambient temperature, incubation day, and (incubation day) 2 . We examined variation among females in individual investment in reproduction by comparing the amounts of nutrients invested in the clutch with those invested in incubation. We compared nest attentiveness with the amount of nutrient reserves available to test the hypothesis that a trade-off exists between nutrient investment in eggs and investment in incubation. Among females, nest attentiveness was lower in 1992 (x = 82%) than in 1993 (x = 87%) and increased with clutch volume and mass. Our results show that environmental conditions influence incubation behavior in Black Brant. We detected a trade-off between investment in eggs and nest attentiveness, but the results are also consistent with the hypothesis that females vary in individual quality and this variation influences egg production as well as incubation.

State-dependent incubation behaviour in the high arctic barnacle geese

“…However, females departed their nests more often and for longer time periods as incubation progressed, a pattern found in several studies on geese (Aldrich and Raveling 1983;Spaans et al 1993;Reed et al 1995;Eichholz and Sedinger 1999;Poussart et al 2001;Jónsson et al 2007). Later in the season, the costs with nest departure, in terms of egg cooling rates, are less due to a general increase in ambient temperature and increased heat productivity by the developing embryos (Afton 1980;Afton and Paulus 1992).…”

“…Costs of incubating larger clutches was also demonstrated by larger mass loss during incubation for heavy female wood ducks Aix sponsa (Hepp et al 2005). Incubation constancy also increased with clutch volume for incubating black brants Branta bernicla nigricans and the attentiveness also increased with body mass after controlling for clutch volume, body size and stage of incubation (Eichholz and Sedinger 1999). It cannot be ruled out, however, that the higher incubation constancy is caused by higher expected reproductive value of large clutches than that for smaller clutches (Erikstad and Tveraa 1995).…”

“…Clutch size did not have any significant effect on the incubation behaviour. Hence, the behaviour during the course of incubation appeared to be influenced by the amount of nutrient reserves females retained after clutch completion (see also Eichholz and Sedinger 1999). This suggests that high-quality females, in terms of body mass, produce many eggs but also allocate more reserves to incubation (see Erikstad et al 1993).…”

“…We measured their clutch size and body mass early in incubation to assess the effects of these on incubation behaviour. As several studies suggest that body mass and condition (i.e., state-dependent influences) have an effect on incubation behaviour (Aldrich and Raveling 1983;Eichholz and Sedinger 1999;Gorman and Nager 2003), we expect light females to show lower incubation constancy to heavy females. The frequency and length of recesses were tested for diurnal trends in the absence from the nest.…”

“…In a season of harsh weather, female white-tailed ptarmigan Lagopus leucurus began incubation with poorer body condition and foraged more during incubation (Wiebe and Martin 2000). Ambient temperature (Aldrich and Raveling 1983;Eichholz and Sedinger 1999;Bentzen et al 2010), wind velocity (Poussart et al 2001) and precipitation (Afton 1980;Eichholz and Sedinger 1999) may influence frequency and length of recesses during incubation. The significance of each may vary according to the breeding microenvironment and Poussart et al (2001) suggested the microenvironment to explain the large variation in incubation behaviour among greater snow geese Chen caerulescens atlantica.…”