The effect of parental quality and malaria infection on nestling performance in the Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis)

Abstract

Plumage ornamentation often signals the quality of males and, therefore, female birds may choose elaborately ornamented mates to increase their fitness. Such mate choice may confer both direct and indirect benefits to the offspring. Males with elaborate ornaments may provide good genes, which can result in better nestling growth, survival or resistance against parasitic infections. However, these males may also provision their offspring with more food or food of better quality, resulting in nestlings growing at a higher rate or fledging in better condition. In this study, we examined if there was an association between male ornamentation and malaria infection in Collared Flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis). We also investigated offspring performance in relation to malaria infection in the parents and the quality of the genetic and rearing fathers (assessed by the size of two secondary sexual characters) under simulated good and bad conditions (using brood size manipulation). We found that secondary sexual characters did not signal the ability of males to avoid parasitic infections, and malaria infection in the genetic and the rearing parents had no effect on nestling growth and fledging size. Our results do show, however, that it may be beneficial for the females to mate with males with a large forehead patch because wing feathers of nestlings reared by large-patched males grew at a higher rate. Fast feather growth can result in earlier fledging which, in turn, could improve nestling survival in highly variable environments or under strong nest predation.

Ornaments and condition: plumage patch sizes, nutritional reserve state, reserve accumulation, and reserve depletion

“…The relationship changes very little when omitting the lowest value of patch size change (HBA effect after omission, F 1,29 = 5.686, p = 0.024) In the nestling rearing stage, no measure of actual nutrition showed any correlation with badge sizes. In our population, despite some consistent relationships between nestling growth and male badge sizes (Szöllősi et al 2009;Hegyi et al 2011), no correlational or experimental study has shown any robust link between measures of male parental care and forehead or wing patch size (Kiss et al 2013;Kötél et al 2016;Laczi et al 2017). Therefore, nutritional reserve management in the nestling rearing period may indeed not be closely linked to ornamentation.…”

Haemoproteus infection status of collared flycatcher males changes within a breeding season

“…However, none of the characters that signal male quality in the Hungarian collared flycatcher population (the size of the forehead patch: Garamszegi et al 2004, Szöllősi et al 2009; the size of the wing patch: Török et al 2003tarsus length: Szöllősi et al 2009) correlated with infection status at arrival to the breeding sites or disappearance of parasites from the individuals between arrival until nestling feeding.…”

Acute infection of avian malaria impairs concentration of haemoglobin and survival in juvenile altricial birds

“…These parasites are commonly detected in a variety of reptiles, birds and mammals being transmitted via bloodsucking insects (Atkinson et al ., ; Pérez‐Tris & Bensch, ; Hutchings, 2009; Krams et al ., , ,b). In birds, malaria has been shown to have direct pathogenic effects on the host, and these effects in turn result in reductions in parental care (Merino et al ., ) and reduction of fledgling success (Merino et al ., ; Yorinks & Atkinson, ; Garvin, Homer & Greiner, ; Sol, Jovani & Torres, ; but see Szöllősi et al ., ; Knutie, Waite & Clayton, ). These effects furthermore lead to decreased survival in infected hosts (Warner, ; Dawson & Bortolotti, ; Merino et al ., ; Sol et al ., ; Marzal et al ., ; Martinez‐de la Puente et al ., ), and so these effects have important consequences for fitness.…”