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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on June 8, 2009
Behavioral Ecology 2009 20(4):878-883; doi:10.1093/beheco/arp076
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Sex-specific parental strategies according to the sex of offspring in the Adélie penguin

Michaël Beaulieu, Anne-Mathilde Thierry, Thierry Raclot, Yvon Le Maho, Yan Ropert-Coudert, Hélène Gachot-Neveu and André Ancel

Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie, Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7178, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Université de Strasbourg, 23 rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg Cedex 2, France

Address correspondence to M. Beaulieu. E-mail: michael.beaulieu{at}c-strasbourg.fr.


  Abstract

In sexually dimorphic species, the sex of the offspring may induce different constraints for parents. At the same time, within pairs, males and females may have conflicting optimal reproductive strategies. As a result, they may adjust their level of parental investment differently according to the sex of the young. In this study, we examined whether Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) chicks were sexually dimorphic and whether parents adjusted their parental investment accordingly. Male chicks were on average approximately 10% heavier than female chicks but not larger. Despite the presumed additional cost associated with male chick growth, no fitness cost differences were observed between parents rearing 1 chick whatever its sex: Adult body mass changes and resight rates during the subsequent breeding season were similar. However, the sex of offspring affected the duration of foraging trips during the early guard stage: At this stage, female adults rearing a female chick performed longer foraging trips than female adults rearing a male chick and males rearing either a male or a female chick. We propose that, because female adults present a lower survival rate after a breeding attempt, they are more prone to modify their level of parental investment than male adults. Moreover, the modulation of the foraging behavior by female adults according to the sex of the chick is likely to reduce intraspecific competition at a time when resource availability at sea is not optimal and when food requirement for female chicks may be lower than for male chicks.

Key words: biparental care, foraging strategies, sex-related breeding effort.

Received 18 December 2008; revised 3 March 2009; accepted 26 April 2009.


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