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Experimentally reduced male attractiveness increases parental care in the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca

Experimentally reduced male attractiveness increases parental care in the pied flycatcher... This study reports effects of experimental manipulations of reproductive effort and the size of the male's white forehead patch (a secondary sexual trait), on provisioning rates, reproductive success, and parental breeding dispersal distance in the pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca . Parents caring for enlarged broods resulting from manipulated clutches provisioned nests at higher rates than parents with reduced broods. Males with a reduced forehead patch fed their nestlings more in relation to males with an unmanipulated forehead patch, and their young fledging with a longer tarsi. This suggests that males with a reduced attractiveness may perceive their own attractiveness and they devote more time available for parental effort given their poorer prospects in male contest competition and/or female attraction for extra-pair copulations. However, their females did not alter their provisioning effort and this runs counter to both the differential allocation and the partner-compensation hypotheses. An artificial decrease in a male secondary sexual trait led to a wider breeding dispersal distance between successive years. Key words http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press

Experimentally reduced male attractiveness increases parental care in the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca

Behavioral Ecology , Volume 12 (2) – Mar 1, 2001

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References (37)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 International Society for Behavioral Ecology
ISSN
1045-2249
eISSN
1465-7279
DOI
10.1093/beheco/12.2.171
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This study reports effects of experimental manipulations of reproductive effort and the size of the male's white forehead patch (a secondary sexual trait), on provisioning rates, reproductive success, and parental breeding dispersal distance in the pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca . Parents caring for enlarged broods resulting from manipulated clutches provisioned nests at higher rates than parents with reduced broods. Males with a reduced forehead patch fed their nestlings more in relation to males with an unmanipulated forehead patch, and their young fledging with a longer tarsi. This suggests that males with a reduced attractiveness may perceive their own attractiveness and they devote more time available for parental effort given their poorer prospects in male contest competition and/or female attraction for extra-pair copulations. However, their females did not alter their provisioning effort and this runs counter to both the differential allocation and the partner-compensation hypotheses. An artificial decrease in a male secondary sexual trait led to a wider breeding dispersal distance between successive years. Key words

Journal

Behavioral EcologyOxford University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2001

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