We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Relative reproductive success of female moorhens using conditional strategies of brood parasitism and parental care
- Authors
McRae, Susan B.
- Abstract
In a population of moorhens (Gallinula chlropus), at least 27% of nesting females laid one or more eggs in a neighbor's nest. Females laid parasitically under three conditions: 56% of parasitic eggs were from nesting females that preceded laying a clutch in their own nest bya parasitic laying bout, 19% were from females whose nests were depredated before clutch completion and that laid the following egg parasitically, and 25% were from a small number of females without territories, 'non-nesting' parasites, that each laid a series of parasitic eggs. Clutch sizes varied greatly between females, but nesting femaleseach laid a consistent clutch size both within and between seasons for a given mate and territory. Nesting females that employed a dual strategy of brood parasitism and parental care produced extra eggs that they laid in the nests of neighbors before laying a clutch in theirown nests. Two out of ten females whose clutches I experimentally removed during the laying period were successfully induced to lay theirnext egg in the nest of a neighbor. Nesting females that laid parasitically selected their hosts opportunistically from among the nests closest to their territories. An experiment in which parasitic eggs were removed and hosts left to rear only their own young showed that parasites did not choose hosts that were better parents than pairs withcontemporary nests that were not parasitized. Females that only laidparasitically within a given season timed their parasitic laying bouts poorly and achieved no reproductive success. Parasitic young rarely fledged, and the mean seasonal reproductive success of nesting brood parasites did not differ from that of nonparasitic females. However, the variance in reproductive success of nesting brood parasites wassignificantly higher than that of nonparasitic females.
- Subjects
BIRD behavior; REPRODUCTION
- Publication
Behavioral Ecology, 1998, Vol 9, Issue 1, p93
- ISSN
1045-2249
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/beheco/9.1.93