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Nest Integration: a novel form of food acquisition by altricial fledglings

Evolutionary Ecology volume 37, pages 859–869 (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Parental investment in offspring provides fitness benefits for progeny but incurs costs for parents. However, in birds there is a paucity of information on the foraging behaviors of altricial young once they leave the nest. Here we report a novel form of food acquisition in an altricial bird that is driven by a fledgling itself rather than its parents. In a population of densely nesting Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) in Eastern Illinois, USA, we encountered multiple instances of a free-moving fledgling present in a focal nest that also had chicks too young to fly. We observed this behavior six different times in the field and obtained detailed video footage of six total instances at three independent nests, with two of these resulting in an apparent acceptance (i.e., feeding) of the focal fledgling by the attending parental adults. In one of the two nests where the fledgling(s) were accepted, feeding adults provisioned the fledgling as much as the average chick in the nest while at the other nest attending adults fed the fledgling above random expectations. Nest integration appears to be a novel form of food acquisition that is distinct from other fledgling self-maintenance behaviors.

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Fig. 1

Data availability

All data is available in the manuscript. Supplementary material is available on Figshare.com (https://figshare.com/s/1dd6c20a769b785a73fd, https://figshare.com/s/bada505195147e412943, https://figshare.com/s/fa372e336170ec68bb7c).

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the permissions to work at our study site on vertebrate animals. We thank the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, and the Vermilion County Conservation District for allowing us to conduct our research on their parks. We also thank the referees and the editor of the journal for providing valuable feedback on earlier drafts.

Funding

Funding was provided by internal SIB/PEEC grants (Harley J. Van Cleave Research Award, and the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology Summer Research Award) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to FF-D. Additional support was provided by a National Science Foundation grant (#1953226# to MEH).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Facundo Fernandez-Duque

  2. Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Erika Y. Huerta

  3. Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Shelby L. Lawson

  4. School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Saieshwar Chikoti & Mark E. Hauber

Authors
  1. Facundo Fernandez-Duque
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  2. Erika Y. Huerta
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  3. Shelby L. Lawson
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  4. Saieshwar Chikoti
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  5. Mark E. Hauber
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Contributions

FFD and SLL conducted the field work and recorded the field observations. FFD, EYH, and SC recorded the behavioral data from the videos. FFD and MEH analyzed the data. All authors contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Facundo Fernandez-Duque.

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All research was approved by the IACUC of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and conducted under the Protocol #22007.

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Fernandez-Duque, F., Huerta, E.Y., Lawson, S.L. et al. Nest Integration: a novel form of food acquisition by altricial fledglings. Evol Ecol 37, 859–869 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-023-10250-8

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