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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access published online on November 24, 2004
Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/ari009
© 2004 by International Society for Behavioral Ecology
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Received November 17, 2003
Revised October 12, 2004
Accepted October 18, 2004

Article

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

Matteo Griggio 1, Giuliano Matessi 2, and Andrea Pilastro 1*

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

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Andrea Pilastro, E-mail: andrea.pilastro{at}unipd.it


  Abstract

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.

Keywords: courtship; fertility cue; mate guarding; parental care; sexual conflict.
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M. Griggio, A. Devigili, H. Hoi, and A. Pilastro
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Behav. Ecol., September 1, 2009; 20(5): 1072 - 1078.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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