Abstract
We present evidence of differential maternal allocation to eggs in response to manipulated male attractiveness in the migratory pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). We manipulated the size of a male secondary sexual trait, the white forehead patch, right after male arrival to the breeding area and before female arrival. Patch size was (1) enlarged to the maximum observed in the population, (2) reduced by 40% or (3) kept constant by painting with indelible felt markers over the natural feather patch. Male behaviour was affected by the experimental manipulation, as individuals with enlarged patches performed more approaches to the nestbox in response to song playback during the territory occupation and nest-site presentation phases. Females paired with males with reduced forehead patches laid significantly smaller eggs than those paired with males in the control and enlarged-patch treatments. Laying date and clutch size did not differ among the experimental groups. We discuss that manipulations of ornaments designed to study differential allocation at laying should reduce as well as enlarge their expression.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to dedicate this paper to the memory of José Luis Osorno, an excellent behavioural ecologist and admirable colleague. José Luis spent a sabbatical year in Madrid in 2002–2003, where he led this study. The study received financial support from projects CGL2004–00787/BOS to J. Moreno and BOS2003-05724 to S.M. (DGI-Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia). J. Morales and G. Tomás were supported by a FPI grant from MEC and Comunidad de Madrid respectively. R.A. Vásquez was supported by a grant CSIC-Universidad de Chile 2003-04-09, the Millennium Center for Advanced Studies in Ecology and Research on Biodiversity (Grant P02-051-F-ICM, Chile), and the BBVA (Spain) Foundation Prize in Research on Conservation Biology. We thank Consuelo Corral and Tonantzin Calvo for help in the field. We also thank Juan José Sanz for help in the use of the Ocean Optics USB-2000 spectrophotometer and Diego Gil for advice on the playback procedure. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. We were authorized by Javier Donés, Director of Centro Montes de Valsaín to work in the study area. Dirección General del Medio Natural (Junta de Castilla y León) authorized the capture and ringing of birds. The experiments comply with the current Spanish laws. This paper is a contribution from the El Ventorrillo field station.
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Osorno, J.L., Morales, J., Moreno, J. et al. Evidence for differential maternal allocation to eggs in relation to manipulated male attractiveness in the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). J Ornithol 147, 605–611 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-006-0085-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-006-0085-1