Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties?
In biparental species, parents may be in conflict over how much they invest into their offspring. To understand this conflict, parental care needs to be accurately measured, something rarely done. Here, we quantitatively describe the outcome of parental conflict in terms of quality, amount, and timi...
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ftrepec:oai:RePEc:oup:beheco:v:25:y:2014:i:1:p:152-164. 2024-04-14T08:07:33+00:00 Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? Martin Bulla Mihai Valcu Anne L. Rutten Bart Kempenaers http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/art098 unknown http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/art098 article ftrepec 2024-03-19T10:29:33Z In biparental species, parents may be in conflict over how much they invest into their offspring. To understand this conflict, parental care needs to be accurately measured, something rarely done. Here, we quantitatively describe the outcome of parental conflict in terms of quality, amount, and timing of incubation throughout the 21-day incubation period in a population of semipalmated sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) breeding under continuous daylight in the high Arctic. Incubation quality, measured by egg temperature and incubation constancy, showed no marked difference between the sexes. The amount of incubation, measured as length of incubation bouts, was on average 51min longer per bout for females (11.5h) than for males (10.7h), at first glance suggesting that females invested more than males. However, this difference may have been offset by sex differences in the timing of incubation; females were more often off nest during the warmer period of the day, when foraging conditions were presumably better. Overall, the daily timing of incubation shifted over the incubation period (e.g., for female incubation from evening–night to night–morning) and over the season, but varied considerably among pairs. At one extreme, pairs shared the amount of incubation equally, but one parent always incubated during the colder part of the day; at the other extreme, pairs shifted the start of incubation bouts between days so that each parent experienced similar conditions across the incubation period. Our results highlight how the simultaneous consideration of different aspects of care across time allows sex-specific investment to be more accurately quantified. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) Arctic |
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Open Polar |
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RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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ftrepec |
language |
unknown |
description |
In biparental species, parents may be in conflict over how much they invest into their offspring. To understand this conflict, parental care needs to be accurately measured, something rarely done. Here, we quantitatively describe the outcome of parental conflict in terms of quality, amount, and timing of incubation throughout the 21-day incubation period in a population of semipalmated sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) breeding under continuous daylight in the high Arctic. Incubation quality, measured by egg temperature and incubation constancy, showed no marked difference between the sexes. The amount of incubation, measured as length of incubation bouts, was on average 51min longer per bout for females (11.5h) than for males (10.7h), at first glance suggesting that females invested more than males. However, this difference may have been offset by sex differences in the timing of incubation; females were more often off nest during the warmer period of the day, when foraging conditions were presumably better. Overall, the daily timing of incubation shifted over the incubation period (e.g., for female incubation from evening–night to night–morning) and over the season, but varied considerably among pairs. At one extreme, pairs shared the amount of incubation equally, but one parent always incubated during the colder part of the day; at the other extreme, pairs shifted the start of incubation bouts between days so that each parent experienced similar conditions across the incubation period. Our results highlight how the simultaneous consideration of different aspects of care across time allows sex-specific investment to be more accurately quantified. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Martin Bulla Mihai Valcu Anne L. Rutten Bart Kempenaers |
spellingShingle |
Martin Bulla Mihai Valcu Anne L. Rutten Bart Kempenaers Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? |
author_facet |
Martin Bulla Mihai Valcu Anne L. Rutten Bart Kempenaers |
author_sort |
Martin Bulla |
title |
Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? |
title_short |
Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? |
title_full |
Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? |
title_fullStr |
Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Biparental incubation patterns in a high-Arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? |
title_sort |
biparental incubation patterns in a high-arctic breeding shorebird: how do pairs divide their duties? |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/art098 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/art098 |
_version_ |
1796304961361936384 |