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Age dependent sex allocation in the polygynous spotless starling

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Abstract

Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that avian females are able to manipulate the offspring sex ratio at birth. Although mating with an attractive male may induce females to skew the sex ratio toward males, the balance between the benefits of producing attractive sons and the costs of competing with other females for mates could vary with female age, a possibility that had not been previously explored. In this paper we increment experimentally the attractiveness of males of the polygynous spotless starling (Sturnus unicolor) by adding green plants to their nests, a trait involved in courtship, and look for female age-differential effects on offspring primary sex ratio. Young and middle aged females produced more sons in experimental than in control nests, as expected, but old females showed the opposite tendency. To explain this novel result, we speculate that older females are limited to produce the most costly sex because the physiological drawbacks imposed by ageing reduce their ability to compete with younger ones for the non-shareable resources offered by males. We discuss that this evolutionary scenario may be widespread in avian polygynous systems.

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Acknowledgments

We thank J. M. Aparicio, J. Carranza and L.M. Carrascal for their critical comments. This paper has also greatly benefited from comments of two anonymous referees. This work was supported by projects BOS2001-0703 of the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, CGL2004-00126/BOS and CGL2005-05611-C02-01/BOS of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. The experimental manipulations were carried out under licence of the Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo de la Comunidad de Madrid and the Ayuntamiento de Manzanares el Real (Madrid).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2, Madrid, 28006, Spain

    José Pablo Veiga & Vicente Polo

  2. Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (CSIC-UCLM-JCCLM), Libertad 7a, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Pedro Javier Cordero

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  1. José Pablo Veiga
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  2. Vicente Polo
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  3. Pedro Javier Cordero
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Correspondence to José Pablo Veiga.

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Veiga, J.P., Polo, V. & Cordero, P.J. Age dependent sex allocation in the polygynous spotless starling. Evol Ecol 22, 167–176 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-007-9166-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-007-9166-8

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