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Parents of the Azure-winged Magpie exhibit sex-specific allocation of food to offspring

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Abstract

Models of sex allocation theory suggest that when sons and daughters have different reproductive values to their parents, parents overproduce offspring of higher value to maximize their reproductive success. Empirical testing of these models remains inconclusive. We investigated whether parents of the Azure-winged Magpie (Cyanopica cyana), a cooperatively breeding bird, controlled offspring sex ratios and whether they exhibited sex-specific food allocation among nestlings. Our results showed that offspring sex ratios at hatching and fledging did not deviate from equivalent ratio in both cooperative groups and bi-parental nests. No factors were significantly correlated with offspring sex ratios at hatching, indicating that parents did not control their offspring sex ratios. However, parents adopted two postnatal strategies to control the growth pattern of nestlings. First, they delivered more food to their sons than their daughters to ensure the survivorship of their sons. Second, they adjusted the feeding rates and food allocation time per feeding bout according to the offspring sex ratios and positively responded to the begging behavior of nestlings to increase the survivorship of the daughters. Our findings suggest that the postnatal strategies adopted by the parents, in terms of sex-specific allocation of food to offspring, may play a greater role than the prenatal strategies, i.e., the control of offspring sex ratios, in the enhancement of reproductive success.

Zusammenfassung

Blauelstern-Eltern füttern ihre Jungen geschlechtsspezifisch unterschiedlich

Die Modelle der “sex allocation theory” weisen darauf hin, dass immer dann, wenn Töchter und Söhne für die Eltern von unterschiedlich hohem Fortpflanzungswert sind, die Eltern überproportional viele Nachkommen des höher bewerteten Geschlechts zeugen, um ihren eigenen Fortpflanzungserfolg zu maximieren. Die empirischen Untersuchungen dieser Modelle erwiesen sich allerdings bisher als nicht sehr beweiskräftig. Wir untersuchten, ob die Elterntiere der Blauelster (Cyanopica cyana), einer gemeinschaftlich brütenden Vogelart, das Geschlechterverhältnis ihrer Jungen beeinflussen und eine geschlechtsspezifische Futterverteilung an ihre Nestlinge vornehmen. Die Ergebnisse unserer Studie zeigen, dass es zwischen den gemeinschaftlich brütenden Tieren und denen mit einem Elternpaar pro Nest in den Geschlechterverhältnissen zum Zeitpunkt des Schlüpfens und des Ausfliegens keine Unterschiede gab. Zum Zeitpunkt des Schlüpfens korrelierten keine Faktoren signifikant mit dem Geschlechterverhältnis der Jungen, was darauf hinwies, dass die Elterntiere keinen aktiven Einfluss auf das Geschlechterverhältnis ihrer Jungen nahmen. Aber die Eltern zeigten zwei postnatale Strategien, um das Wachstum ihrer Nestlinge zu beeinflussen. Zum einen brachten sie den männlichen Nestlingen mehr Futter als den Töchtern, um so das Überleben der Söhne sicherzustellen. Zum anderen richteten sie sich bei der Fütterungshäufigkeit und der Dauer des Fütterns pro Fütterungsakt nach dem Geschlechterverhältnis und reagierten positiv auf das Betteln der Nestlinge, um die Überlebensrate der weiblichen Nestlinge zu erhöhen. Unsere Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass in Hinblick auf eine geschlechtsspezifische Futterverteilung an ihre Nestlinge postnatale Strategien der Elterntiere eine größere Rolle spielen als pränatale.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support was provided by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 31070346 and 31572271) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (lzujbky-2017-147). The authors particularly thank the Subject Editor, Oliver Krüger, and two reviewers for their suggestions related to the statistical analysis and the manner of writing, which are very important for us to improve our paper.

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  1. School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Tianshui South Road 222#, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China

    Xin-Wei Da, Li-Li Xian, Juan-Juan Luo & Bo Du

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  1. Xin-Wei Da
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  2. Li-Li Xian
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  3. Juan-Juan Luo
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  4. Bo Du
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Correspondence to Bo Du.

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Communicated by O. Krüger.

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Da, XW., Xian, LL., Luo, JJ. et al. Parents of the Azure-winged Magpie exhibit sex-specific allocation of food to offspring. J Ornithol 159, 255–263 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-017-1502-3

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