Multiple hypotheses explain variation in extra‐pair paternity at different levels in a single bird family |
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| Authors: | Lyanne Brouwer Martijn van de Pol Nataly Hidalgo Aranzamendi Glen Bain Daniel T Baldassarre Lesley C Brooker Michael G Brooker Diane Colombelli‐Négrel Erik Enbody Kurt Gielow Michelle L Hall Allison E Johnson Jordan Karubian Sjouke A Kingma Sonia Kleindorfer Marina Louter Raoul A Mulder Anne Peters Stephen Pruett‐Jones Keith A Tarvin Derrick J Thrasher Claire W Varian‐Ramos Michael S Webster Andrew Cockburn |
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| Institution: | 1. Division of Ecology and Evolution, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia;2. Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology NIOO‐KNAW, Wageningen, The Netherlands;3. School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Monash, Vic., Australia;4. School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic., Australia;5. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA;6. , Gooseberry Hill, WA, Australia;7. School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia;8. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, LA, USA;9. Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA;10. Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany;11. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA;12. Behavioural and Physiological Ecology, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands;13. Department of Biology, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, USA;14. Biology Department, Colorado State University, Pueblo, CO, USA |
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| Abstract: | Extra‐pair paternity (EPP), where offspring are sired by a male other than the social male, varies enormously both within and among species. Trying to explain this variation has proved difficult because the majority of the interspecific variation is phylogenetically based. Ideally, variation in EPP should be investigated in closely related species, but clades with sufficient variation are rare. We present a comprehensive multifactorial test to explain variation in EPP among individuals in 20 populations of nine species over 89 years from a single bird family (Maluridae). Females had higher EPP in the presence of more helpers, more neighbours or if paired incestuously. Furthermore, higher EPP occurred in years with many incestuous pairs, populations with many helpers and species with high male density or in which males provide less care. Altogether, these variables accounted for 48% of the total and 89% of the interspecific and interpopulation variation in EPP. These findings indicate why consistent patterns in EPP have been so challenging to detect and suggest that a single predictor is unlikely to account for the enormous variation in EPP across levels of analysis. Nevertheless, it also shows that existing hypotheses can explain the variation in EPP well and that the density of males in particular is a good predictor to explain variation in EPP among species when a large part of the confounding effect of phylogeny is excluded. |
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| Keywords: | fairy‐wrens Malurus polyandry promiscuity |
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