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Paternity covaries with laying and hatching order in the collared flycatcher Ficedula albicollis

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Abstract

Females in most bird species engage in extra-pair copulations. Although this behaviour is widespread, benefits for females of doing so are less understood. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that they improve their previous choice of social partner and gain genetic benefits for their offspring. Some evidence for this comes from studies that find that extra-pair young (EPY) have greater fitness than their half-sibs. However, this might be also caused by maternal, non-genetic effect, a possibility that remains largely untested. Here we test whether EPY are laid in larger eggs or eggs laid early in the laying sequence in the collared flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis). The size of eggs bearing EPY and within-pair young (WPY) did not differ, however, EPY were laid in early eggs and consequently hatched earlier than WPY. As hatching asynchrony is a strong determinant of offspring size and survival in many species, including collared flycatcher, our results suggest that a caution is needed when paternal genetic effects are to be inferred from comparison of naturally occurring half-sibs.

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. Grim, V. Pavel, V. Remeš, B. C. Sheldon, E. Tkadlec, K. Weidinger and several anonymous referees for valuable comments or discussion on several drafts of the manuscript. J. Stříteský greatly helped in the field. K. Weidinger kindly provided us plastic eggs. We owe forest enterprise Čechy pod Kosířem for providing the nest-boxes and the caravan. M. K. thanks Kačenka for encouragement and support. This study was supported by grants from the Czech Ministry of Education (MSM 6198959212) and from GAČR (No. 206/03/0215). The study was approved and supervised by the Ethical Committee of Palacký University and complies with the current law of the Czech Republic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museum of Natural History, nám. Republiky 5, 771 73, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Miloš Krist

  2. Laboratory of Ornithology, Palacký University, tr. Svobody 26, 771 46, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Miloš Krist & Stanislav Bureš

  3. Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, Palacký University, Šlechtitelu 11, 783 71, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Petr Nádvorník & Lenka Uvírová

  4. Department of Zoology, Palacký University, tr. Svobody 26, 771 46, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Petr Nádvorník & Stanislav Bureš

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  1. Miloš Krist
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  2. Petr Nádvorník
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  4. Stanislav Bureš
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Correspondence to Miloš Krist.

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Communicated by J. Graves

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Krist, M., Nádvorník, P., Uvírová, L. et al. Paternity covaries with laying and hatching order in the collared flycatcher Ficedula albicollis . Behav Ecol Sociobiol 59, 6–11 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-005-0002-2

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