Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

How males in the house wren, a cavity-nesting songbird, discover that eggs have hatched and transition to provisioning nestlings

How males in the house wren, a cavity-nesting songbird, discover that eggs have hatched and... How males in the house wren, a cavity-nesting songbird, discover that eggs have hatched and transition to provisioning nestlings L. Scott Johnson 1) , Jessica L. Brubaker 2) & Bonnie G. P. Johnson (Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252, USA) (Accepted: 17 April 2008) Summary In many bird species that conceal nests within cavities or burrows, only females incubate eggs, but both sexes feed young after hatching. How males in such species discover that eggs have hatched and start provisioning offspring is unknown. We video-taped 26 house wren ( Troglodytes aedon ) nests continuously before, during, and after hatching began to test four hypotheses as to how males might learn of hatching: (i) females signal hatching to males; (ii) males hear hatchlings vocalizing; (iii) males observe changes in their mate’s behaviour (e.g., entering and exiting nests more frequently and/or carrying eggshells or food); and (iv) males enter the nest cavity and encounter hatchlings directly. We did not detect any unique visual or vocal displays by females immediately post-hatching and so could not support the first hypothesis. At only three of 26 nests did it appear that males might have been stimulated to begin feeding solely as http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Behaviour Brill

How males in the house wren, a cavity-nesting songbird, discover that eggs have hatched and transition to provisioning nestlings

Behaviour , Volume 145 (12): 16 – Jan 1, 2008

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/how-males-in-the-house-wren-a-cavity-nesting-songbird-discover-that-J0w5idjtje

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0005-7959
eISSN
1568-539X
DOI
10.1163/156853908786279655
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

How males in the house wren, a cavity-nesting songbird, discover that eggs have hatched and transition to provisioning nestlings L. Scott Johnson 1) , Jessica L. Brubaker 2) & Bonnie G. P. Johnson (Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252, USA) (Accepted: 17 April 2008) Summary In many bird species that conceal nests within cavities or burrows, only females incubate eggs, but both sexes feed young after hatching. How males in such species discover that eggs have hatched and start provisioning offspring is unknown. We video-taped 26 house wren ( Troglodytes aedon ) nests continuously before, during, and after hatching began to test four hypotheses as to how males might learn of hatching: (i) females signal hatching to males; (ii) males hear hatchlings vocalizing; (iii) males observe changes in their mate’s behaviour (e.g., entering and exiting nests more frequently and/or carrying eggshells or food); and (iv) males enter the nest cavity and encounter hatchlings directly. We did not detect any unique visual or vocal displays by females immediately post-hatching and so could not support the first hypothesis. At only three of 26 nests did it appear that males might have been stimulated to begin feeding solely as

Journal

BehaviourBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2008

Keywords: PARENTAL CARE; TROGLODYTES AEDON; CAVITY-NESTING; HATCHING; HOUSE WREN

There are no references for this article.