Do female pied flycatchers seek extrapair copulations with familiar males? A test of the incomplete knowledge hypothesis

In birds with biparental care, great variation exists in thefrequency of extrapair paternity. Several hypotheses have beenproposed to account for this variation. We tested the incompleteknowledge hypothesis, which states that females are constrainedin their knowledge of male quality and that this influencestheir willingness to engage in extrapair copulations (EPC).By selective removal and release of female pied flycatchersFicedula hypoleuca, we created a situation where females finallysettled with a social mate close to the site where a formersocial mate was breeding. According to the incomplete knowledgehypothesis, this would lower the threshold for females to seekextrapair copulations in cases where their former social matewas of higher quality than the one finally chosen. The hypothesiswas not supported because manipulation of female settlementdid not increase frequency of extrapair paternity, not evenin cases where the female nested close to the previous mateand the current mate apparently was of lower quality becausehe was younger and more dull colored. However, we found that when extrapair paternity did occur, the cuckolder tended tobe a familiar male (i.e., the female's initial social mate).     

Certainty of paternity and paternal effort in the collared flycatcher

Models of optimal parental investment predict that variationin certainty of paternity can affect the optimal level of paternalinvestment when a male's expected paternity in different nestingattempts is not fixed throughout his lifetime. Several attemptsto test this prediction experimentally in monogamous birds havefailed to induce a reduction in care by males. This may be becausethe method used, detaining males, is a poor model for what happenswhen a male's certainly of paternity is naturally reduced. Wecaught and detained female collared flycatchers Ficedula albicollisfor 1 h immediately after laying on one or two occasions inan attempt to induce variation in certainty of paternity forthe males they were mated to. By capturing females immediatelyafter laying we hoped to exploit the existence of an "inseminationwindow" since males should be very sensitive to female absenceduring this period. The general effect of the experimental manipulationwas consistent with reduced certainty of paternity: males respondedby reducing their level of paternal care to nestlings, and malesmated to females that had been caught on one morning fed nestlingssignificantly less often and made a smaller share of feedingvisits than males mated to control females. The effects of theexperiment were generally weak, however, and we argue that certaintyof paternity may be fixed well before egg laying, in which caseexperimental manipulations are unlikely to have large effects.It is difficult to predict die effects of natural variationin certainty of paternity on levels of male paternal care becausedifferential allocation by females mated to attractive malesmay act in the opposite direction     

Properties of food loads delivered to nestlings in the pied flycatcher: effects of clutch size manipulation, year, and sex

Experimental manipulation of the number of altricial offspring is supposed to modify parental expenditure in birds. In addition to the observed increase in parental feeding rate, it is also possible that the choice of prey or the size of load may change with the changing demand for food. Sexual differences in the provisioning response are also expected, on the basis of earlier studies. We examined the effect of brood size manipulation on choice of prey brought to nestlings and load size in the pied flycatcher. The composition and size of loads differed between years, possibly depending on varying availability of different prey types. Males responded to brood size enlargement by gathering heavier loads, whereas females showed no response. The alteration of load size in males was not explained by a larger number of prey items or mean prey size, but was a combination of these components. It is likely that males also increased their work rate in response to increased food demand at the nest. The absence of response in females might be because they are unable to increase work rate any further, or because food delivery rate in females can not be optimized by changing load properties. Received: 18 December 1997 / Accepted: 1 March 1998     

灰蓝姬鹟的孵卵节律

2 0 0 2年在莲花山自然保护区使用温度自动记录装置对灰蓝姬的孵卵节律进行了研究。研究表明 ,灰蓝姬雌鸟日平均离巢 31.2 5± 7.5 0次 (n =8天 ) ,平均每次离巢持续时间为 7± 2min (n =2 6 4 ) ,平均在巢持续时间 2 1± 9min (n =2 5 6 )。雌鸟在巢率与环境温度间存在显著的负相关关系 (Spearman相关 ,r =- 0 .30 4 ,P <0 .0 1)。进一步的分析表明 ,灰蓝姬雌鸟每次离巢持续时间与环境温度呈显著的正相关 (Spearman相关 ,r =0 .2 6 1,P <0 .0 1) ,每次在巢时间和离巢次数均与环境温度无关 (在巢时间 ,r =0 .0 2 6 ,P =0 .6 82 ;离巢次数 ,r =0 .0 14 ,P =0 .879)。认为灰蓝姬雌鸟主要通过调节离巢时间的长短来控制孵卵节律     

Climate change and unequal phenological changes across four trophic levels: constraints or adaptations?

1. Climate change has been shown to affect the phenology of many organisms, but interestingly these shifts are often unequal across trophic levels, causing a mismatch between the phenology of organisms and their food. 2. We consider two alternative hypotheses: consumers are constrained to adjust sufficiently to the lower trophic level, or prey species react more strongly than their predators to reduce predation. We discuss both hypotheses with our analyses of changes in phenology across four trophic levels: tree budburst, peak biomass of herbivorous caterpillars, breeding phenology of four insectivorous bird species and an avian predator. 3. In our long-term study, we show that between 1988 and 2005, budburst advanced (not significantly) with 0.17 d yr(-1), while between 1985 and 2005 both caterpillars (0.75 d year(-1)) and the hatching date of the passerine species (range for four species: 0.36-0.50 d year(-1)) have advanced, whereas raptor hatching dates showed no trend. 4. The caterpillar peak date was closely correlated with budburst date, as were the passerine hatching dates with the peak caterpillar biomass date. In all these cases, however, the slopes were significantly less than unity, showing that the response of the consumers is weaker than that of their food. This was also true for the avian predator, for which hatching dates were not correlated with the peak availability of fledgling passerines. As a result, the match between food demand and availability deteriorated over time for both the passerines and the avian predators. 5. These results could equally well be explained by consumers' insufficient responses as a consequence of constraints in adapting to climate change, or by them trying to escape predation from a higher trophic level, or both. Selection on phenology could thus be both from matches of phenology with higher and lower levels, and quantifying these can shed new light on why some organisms do adjust their phenology to climate change, while others do not.     

Difference in plasticity of resting metabolic rate – the proximate explanation to different niche breadth in sympatric Ficedula flycatchers

Variation in relative fitness of competing recently formed species across heterogeneous environments promotes coexistence. However, the physiological traits mediating such variation in relative fitness have rarely been identified. Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is tightly associated with life history strategies, thermoregulation, diet use, and inhabited latitude and could therefore moderate differences in fitness responses to fluctuations in local environments, particularly when species have adapted to different climates in allopatry. We work in a long‐term study of collared (Ficedula albicollis) and pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) in a recent hybrid zone located on the Swedish island of Öland in the Baltic Sea. Here, we explore whether differences in RMR match changes in relative performance of growing flycatcher nestlings across environmental conditions using an experimental approach. The fitness of pied flycatchers has previously been shown to be less sensitive to the mismatch between the peak in food abundance and nestling growth among late breeders. Here, we find that pied flycatcher nestlings have lower RMR in response to higher ambient temperatures (associated with low food availability). We also find that experimentally relaxed nestling competition is associated with an increased RMR in this species. In contrast, collared flycatcher nestlings did not vary their RMR in response to these environmental factors. Our results suggest that a more flexible nestling RMR in pied flycatchers is responsible for the better adaptation of pied flycatchers to the typical seasonal changes in food availability experienced in this hybrid zone. Generally, subtle physiological differences that have evolved when species were in allopatry may play an important role to patterns of competition, coexistence, or displacements between closely related species in secondary contact.