Skip Navigation


Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on November 24, 2004
Behavioral Ecology 2005 16(2):435-441; doi:10.1093/beheco/ari009
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Lay Summary
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
16/2/435    most recent
ari009v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (9)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Griggio, M.
Right arrow Articles by Pilastro, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Griggio, M.
Right arrow Articles by Pilastro, A.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Behavioral Ecology vol. 16 no. 2 © International Society for Behavioral Ecology 2004; all rights reserved.

Should I stay or should I go? Female brood desertion and male counterstrategy in rock sparrows

Matteo Griggioa, Giuliano Matessib and Andrea Pilastroa

a Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Padova, via U. Bassi 58/B, I-35131 Padova, Italy, b Animal Behaviour Group, Biological Department, University of Copenhagen, Tagensvej 16, DK-2200 Copenhagen, Denmark

Address correspondence to A. Pilastro. E-mail: andrea.pilastro{at}unipd.it.

Brood desertion involves a series of interactions between the members of a pair. This process is likely to be based on either member's perception of the other's propensity to desert. We manipulated this perception in males by experimentally increasing female body mass in the rock sparrow (Petronia petronia), a species in which females can desert their first brood before the nestlings from the first brood leave the nest. We predicted that the male would either desert the brood first or stay even if this implied the risk of caring for the brood alone. We found that males mated to loaded females did not leave but stayed and significantly increased their courtship rate and mate guarding. Unexpectedly, they also increased their food provisioning to the nestlings, even though loaded females did not reduce their nestling-feeding rate. The increase in male feeding rate may be explained as a way for the male to reduce the female's propensity to switch mate and desert or to increase her propensity to copulate with the male to obtain paternity in her next brood. Altogether, our results demonstrate that the perception of the risk of being deserted by the female does not necessarily induce males to desert first, contrary to what is generally assumed by theoretical models.

Key words: courtship, fertility cue, mate guarding, parental care, sexual conflict.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Behav EcolHome page
M. Griggio, A. Devigili, H. Hoi, and A. Pilastro
Female ornamentation and directional male mate preference in the rock sparrow
Behav. Ecol., September 1, 2009; 20(5): 1072 - 1078.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.