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Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species

Selection should act on parental care and favour parental investment decisions that optimize the number of offspring produced. Such predictions have been robustly tested in predation risk contexts, but less is known about alternative functions of parental care under conditions of parasitism. The avi...

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Autores principales: Kleindorfer, Sonia, Common, Lauren K., O'Connor, Jody A., Garcia-Loor, Jefferson, Katsis, Andrew C., Dudaniec, Rachael Y., Colombelli-Négrel, Diane, Adreani, Nico M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8670954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34905711
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1668
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author Kleindorfer, Sonia
Common, Lauren K.
O'Connor, Jody A.
Garcia-Loor, Jefferson
Katsis, Andrew C.
Dudaniec, Rachael Y.
Colombelli-Négrel, Diane
Adreani, Nico M.
author_facet Kleindorfer, Sonia
Common, Lauren K.
O'Connor, Jody A.
Garcia-Loor, Jefferson
Katsis, Andrew C.
Dudaniec, Rachael Y.
Colombelli-Négrel, Diane
Adreani, Nico M.
author_sort Kleindorfer, Sonia
collection PubMed
description Selection should act on parental care and favour parental investment decisions that optimize the number of offspring produced. Such predictions have been robustly tested in predation risk contexts, but less is known about alternative functions of parental care under conditions of parasitism. The avian vampire fly (Philornis downsi) is a myasis-causing ectoparasite accidentally introduced to the Galápagos Islands, and one of the major mortality causes in Darwin's finch nests. With an 11-year dataset spanning 21 years, we examine the relationship between parental care behaviours and number of fly larvae and pupae in Darwin's finch nests. We do so across three host species (Camarhynchus parvulus, C. pauper, Geospiza fuliginosa) and one hybrid Camarhynchus group. Nests with longer female brooding duration (minutes per hour spent sitting on hatchlings to provide warmth) had fewer parasites, and this effect depended on male food delivery to chicks. Neither male age nor number of nest provisioning visits were directly associated with number of parasites. While the causal mechanisms remain unknown, we provide the first empirical study showing that female brooding duration is negatively related to the number of ectoparasites in nests. We predict selection for coordinated host male and female behaviour to reduce gaps in nest attendance, especially under conditions of novel and introduced ectoparasites.
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spelling pubmed-86709542022-01-03 Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species Kleindorfer, Sonia Common, Lauren K. O'Connor, Jody A. Garcia-Loor, Jefferson Katsis, Andrew C. Dudaniec, Rachael Y. Colombelli-Négrel, Diane Adreani, Nico M. Proc Biol Sci Behaviour Selection should act on parental care and favour parental investment decisions that optimize the number of offspring produced. Such predictions have been robustly tested in predation risk contexts, but less is known about alternative functions of parental care under conditions of parasitism. The avian vampire fly (Philornis downsi) is a myasis-causing ectoparasite accidentally introduced to the Galápagos Islands, and one of the major mortality causes in Darwin's finch nests. With an 11-year dataset spanning 21 years, we examine the relationship between parental care behaviours and number of fly larvae and pupae in Darwin's finch nests. We do so across three host species (Camarhynchus parvulus, C. pauper, Geospiza fuliginosa) and one hybrid Camarhynchus group. Nests with longer female brooding duration (minutes per hour spent sitting on hatchlings to provide warmth) had fewer parasites, and this effect depended on male food delivery to chicks. Neither male age nor number of nest provisioning visits were directly associated with number of parasites. While the causal mechanisms remain unknown, we provide the first empirical study showing that female brooding duration is negatively related to the number of ectoparasites in nests. We predict selection for coordinated host male and female behaviour to reduce gaps in nest attendance, especially under conditions of novel and introduced ectoparasites. The Royal Society 2021-12-22 2021-12-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8670954/ /pubmed/34905711 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1668 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Behaviour
Kleindorfer, Sonia
Common, Lauren K.
O'Connor, Jody A.
Garcia-Loor, Jefferson
Katsis, Andrew C.
Dudaniec, Rachael Y.
Colombelli-Négrel, Diane
Adreani, Nico M.
Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species
title Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species
title_full Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species
title_fullStr Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species
title_full_unstemmed Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species
title_short Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species
title_sort female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in darwin's finch species
topic Behaviour
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8670954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34905711
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1668
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