Fitness consequences of male provisioning of incubating females in a desert passerine bird |
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Authors: | Laura R Stein Kevin P Oh and Alexander V Badyaev |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA; |
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Abstract: | Male provisioning of incubating females can increase reproductive success by maintaining physiological condition of females
and consistency of incubation. The effects of male provisioning on the maintenance of incubation temperature and embryo development
should be particularly pronounced in environments where ambient temperature exceeds the tolerance of unincubated eggs and
where consistency of female incubation might be particularly important for hatching success. Here, we investigated the reproductive
consequences of incubation feeding in a desert population of House Finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) in southwestern Arizona. We found that greater nest attentiveness by females was related to higher minimum incubation nest
temperature, that in turn was closely associated with hatching success. Only 44% of males regularly provisioned their incubating
females. Although provisioned females maintained higher incubation temperature and took fewer incubation breaks than non-provisioned
females, overall, male provisioning did not influence incubation dynamics or hatching success. Further, a male’s incubation
feeding rate did not correlate with male provisioning of nestlings. These results corroborate the finding that, in male House
Finches, neither provisioning of incubating females nor pre-incubation courtship feeding are associated with increases in
circulating pituitary prolactin––the hormone regulating male provisioning of nestlings. We suggest that incubation provisioning
by male might be a component of pair maintenance behavior and that variation in male incubation behavior is best understood
in relation to asymmetries in residual reproductive values between the mates. |
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