Abstract
Male paternity assurance behaviour during the female fertile period has been widely documented amongst birds. In contrast, how sex-specific behavioural strategies vary with local breeding synchrony levels remains largely unknown. This is important because, in many species, intra-population patterns of extra-pair fertilisation rates, and hence cuckoldry risk, are known to vary with the number of simultaneously fertile females. Each sex may therefore differ in how they behave towards male conspecifics during different degrees of breeding synchrony. Here I provide evidence of such sex-specific differences in the golden whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis), a species in which within-pair paternity assurance is negatively associated with breeding synchrony. Via simulated territorial intrusions using decoy males, I show that males, but not females, increase levels of aggression to male intruders during periods of low synchrony, possibly because cuckoldry risk is greatest during this period. In addition, males appear to invest more effort into mate guarding after, but not before, territorial intrusions during this period. These inter-sexual differences may reflect conflicts in interest between the sexes, with females consistently showing interest in males during the fertile period regardless of synchrony levels and males investing more resources into expelling intruders when the risk of paternity loss is greatest. This study thus provides evidence that males may be able to detect variation in breeding synchrony and cuckoldry risk and adjust their paternity assurance behaviour accordingly.
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Raoul Mulder for much advice and support throughout this study, to Larissa Yocom and Grainne Maguire for their assistance with field work, to Brian Elbers and Kees Müller for providing cages to house the captive whistlers and to Ken Kraaijeveld and two anonymous referees for useful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This research was funded by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Fund, the Loftus-Hills Memorial Fund and the Stuart Leslie Bird Research Award. Experiments were conducted under permits issued by the University of Melbourne Animal Experimentation and Ethics Register (permit number 01011), the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Australia (research permit number 10001145) and Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme (authority number 1405).
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van Dongen, W.F.D. Mate guarding and territorial aggression vary with breeding synchrony in golden whistlers (Pachycephala pectoralis). Naturwissenschaften 95, 537–545 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0356-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0356-1