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Breaking the rules: sex roles and genetic mating system of the pheasant coucal

  • Behavioral ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Generally in birds, the classic sex roles of male competition and female choice result in females providing most offspring care while males face uncertain parentage. In less than 5% of species, however, reversed courtship sex roles lead to predominantly male care and low extra-pair paternity. These role-reversed species usually have reversed sexual size dimorphism and polyandry, confirming that sexual selection acts most strongly on the sex with the smaller parental investment and accordingly higher potential reproductive rate. We used parentage analyses and observations from three field seasons to establish the social and genetic mating system of pheasant coucals, Centropus phasianinus, a tropical nesting cuckoo, where males are much smaller than females and provide most parental care. Pheasant coucals are socially monogamous and in this study males produced about 80% of calls in the dawn chorus, implying greater male sexual competition. Despite the substantial male investments, extra-pair paternity was unusually high for a socially monogamous, duetting species. Using two or more mismatches to determine extra-pair parentage, we found that 11 of 59 young (18.6%) in 10 of 21 broods (47.6%) were not sired by their putative father. Male incubation, starting early in the laying sequence, may give the female opportunity and reason to seek these extra-pair copulations. Monogamy, rather than the polyandry and sex-role reversal typical of its congener, C. grillii, may be the result of the large territory size, which could prevent females from monopolising multiple males. The pheasant coucal’s exceptional combination of classic sex-roles and male-biased care for extra-pair young is hard to reconcile with current sexual selection theory, but may represent an intermediate stage in the evolution of polyandry or an evolutionary remnant of polyandry.

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Acknowledgments

We thank S. Musgrave, A. Quellmalz, S. Quinlan, C. Smith, M. Starling, R. Noske and W. Goymann with planning and conducting the fieldwork, and N. Beck, S. Cooney, N. Langmore and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts. The study received support from the Stuart Leslie Bird Research Award, the Cayley Memorial Scholarship, the Ingram trust, and The North Australia Research Unit. The work was conducted under permits from Parks Northern Territory (16973) and the Ethics Committee of the Australian National University (F.BTZ.56.03) and complies with the laws and regulations of the Commonwealth of Australia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Ornithology, University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, Birmingham, UK

    G. Maurer

  2. Australian Antarctic Division, 203 Channel Highway, Kingston, TAS, 7050, Australia

    M. C. Double

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, 4107 Derring Hall, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    O. Milenkaya

  4. Naturschutzbund Deutschland, 10108, Berlin, Germany

    M. Süsser

  5. Research School of Biology, The Australian National University Canberra, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    G. Maurer, M. C. Double & R. D. Magrath

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  1. G. Maurer
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  5. R. D. Magrath
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Correspondence to G. Maurer.

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Communicated by Douglas Robinson.

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Maurer, G., Double, M.C., Milenkaya, O. et al. Breaking the rules: sex roles and genetic mating system of the pheasant coucal. Oecologia 167, 413–425 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2002-4

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