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Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits

Models on the evolution of bi-parental care typically assume that maternal investment in offspring production is fixed and predict subsequent contributions to offspring care by the pair are stabilized by partial compensation. While experimental tests of this prediction are supportive, exceptions are...

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Autores principales: Bründl, Aisha C., Sorato, Enrico, Sallé, Louis, Thiney, Alice C., Kaulbarsch, Sonja, Chaine, Alexis S., Russell, Andrew F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6599988/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31238840
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1013
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author Bründl, Aisha C.
Sorato, Enrico
Sallé, Louis
Thiney, Alice C.
Kaulbarsch, Sonja
Chaine, Alexis S.
Russell, Andrew F.
author_facet Bründl, Aisha C.
Sorato, Enrico
Sallé, Louis
Thiney, Alice C.
Kaulbarsch, Sonja
Chaine, Alexis S.
Russell, Andrew F.
author_sort Bründl, Aisha C.
collection PubMed
description Models on the evolution of bi-parental care typically assume that maternal investment in offspring production is fixed and predict subsequent contributions to offspring care by the pair are stabilized by partial compensation. While experimental tests of this prediction are supportive, exceptions are commonplace. Using wild blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), we provide, to our knowledge, the first investigation into the effects of increasing maternal investment in offspring production for subsequent contributions to nestling provisioning by mothers and male partners. Females that were induced to lay two extra eggs provisioned nestlings 43% more frequently than controls, despite clutch size being made comparable between treatment groups at the onset of incubation. Further, experimental males did not significantly reduce provisioning rates as expected by partial compensation, and if anything contributed slightly (9%) more than controls. Finally, nestlings were significantly heavier in experimental nests compared with controls, suggesting that the 22% average increase in provisioning rates by experimental pairs was beneficial. Our results have potential implications for our understanding of provisioning rules, the maintenance of bi-parental care and the timescale over which current–future life-history trade-offs operate. We recommend greater consideration of female investment at the egg stage to more fully understand the evolutionary dynamics of bi-parental care.
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spelling pubmed-65999882020-06-13 Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits Bründl, Aisha C. Sorato, Enrico Sallé, Louis Thiney, Alice C. Kaulbarsch, Sonja Chaine, Alexis S. Russell, Andrew F. Proc Biol Sci Behaviour Models on the evolution of bi-parental care typically assume that maternal investment in offspring production is fixed and predict subsequent contributions to offspring care by the pair are stabilized by partial compensation. While experimental tests of this prediction are supportive, exceptions are commonplace. Using wild blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), we provide, to our knowledge, the first investigation into the effects of increasing maternal investment in offspring production for subsequent contributions to nestling provisioning by mothers and male partners. Females that were induced to lay two extra eggs provisioned nestlings 43% more frequently than controls, despite clutch size being made comparable between treatment groups at the onset of incubation. Further, experimental males did not significantly reduce provisioning rates as expected by partial compensation, and if anything contributed slightly (9%) more than controls. Finally, nestlings were significantly heavier in experimental nests compared with controls, suggesting that the 22% average increase in provisioning rates by experimental pairs was beneficial. Our results have potential implications for our understanding of provisioning rules, the maintenance of bi-parental care and the timescale over which current–future life-history trade-offs operate. We recommend greater consideration of female investment at the egg stage to more fully understand the evolutionary dynamics of bi-parental care. The Royal Society 2019-06-26 2019-06-26 /pmc/articles/PMC6599988/ /pubmed/31238840 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1013 Text en © 2019 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Behaviour
Bründl, Aisha C.
Sorato, Enrico
Sallé, Louis
Thiney, Alice C.
Kaulbarsch, Sonja
Chaine, Alexis S.
Russell, Andrew F.
Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits
title Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits
title_full Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits
title_fullStr Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits
title_full_unstemmed Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits
title_short Experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits
title_sort experimentally induced increases in fecundity lead to greater nestling care in blue tits
topic Behaviour
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6599988/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31238840
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1013
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