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© 1998 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

research-article

Social mating system and reproductive success in house wrens

Sheryl Swartz Soukupa,b and Charles F. Thompsona

aEcology Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University Normal, IL 61790-4120, USA bDepartment of Biology, Illinois Wesleyan University Bloomington, IL 61702-2900, USA

ABSTRACT

Current models explaining the establishment and maintenance of social monogamy and polygyny within avian populations typically assume that the reproductive success of polygynous males exceeds that of monogamous males. This assumption is almost always supported when the number of fledglings or recruits to future breeding populations is used to measure adult reproductive success. However, recent studies using DNA markers indicate that simple counts of fledglings or recruits may be a poor estimator of the number of nestlings sired by the social father. In this paper, we compare the number of genetic offspring produced by socially monogamous and polygynous house wren (TrogiodyUs atdon) males in nests at which they were the social father. Polygynous males did, in fact, sire more nestlings in their own nests than did monogamous males. Moreover, although we have not identified the sires of extrapair nestlings, we document that even when all extrapair nestlings in this population are hypotheticaOy assigned to monogamous males, die total reproductive success of polygynous males exceeds that of monogamous males. These results and those of several other recent studies are consistent with the assumption that polygynous males produce more offspring than monogamous males.

Key words: DNA fingerprinting, house wren, polygyny, reproductive success, social monogamy, TrogiodyUs atdon.


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