Flexible parental care: Uniparental incubation in biparentally incubating shorebirds

Bulla, Martin; Prüter, Hanna; Vitnerová, Hana; Tijsen, Wim; Sládeček, Martin; Alves, José A.; Gilg, Olivier; Kempenaers, Bart

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-13005-y

Cited by 23 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Variation in compensation may then be related to the variation in how often or how soon the partner checks its nest, or to variation in how long a parent waits for its partner to return, that is, the responsiveness to the partner's absence (Figure 4c). Indeed, some permanently widowed parents continued their typical incubation schedule, leaving the nest unattended during their partner's supposed bout, for several days before changing to a uniparental incubation pattern, suggesting that it took some time before they realized that their partner had deserted or at least before they responded to it (see Actograms in Supporting Information (Bulla 2017a) from Bulla et al 2017). This also fits with our observation that more responsive individuals -i.e.…”

Section: Diverse Compensationsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Females might be more sensitive to stress, because they already laid the eggs (typically, a four-egg clutch is laid in five days and has a similar total mass as an average female's body mass; Hicklin & Gratto-Trevor 2010). In semipalmated sandpipers, females also tend to desert the brood before or after hatching (Hicklin & Gratto-Trevor 2010;Bulla et al 2017). However, we found no marked differences between females and males in the level of compensation during the partner's absence (Figure 2), or in postexperimental quality of incubation ( Figure 5).…”

Section: After-experimental Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a reduction in incubation effort may not always lead to complete loss of the breeding attempt. For example, during warmer periods, near the end of the incubation period, or when a parent has larger energy reserves, a single parent might successfully incubate a clutch (Bulla et al 2017). This means that there might be some room for one parent to exploit the investment of the other parent.…”

Section: Diverse Compensationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporary mate removal during incubation leads to variable compensation in a biparental shorebird

Bulla

Vâlcu

Rutten

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Biparental care for offspring requires cooperation, but it is also a potential source of conflict, since one parent may care less at the expense of the other. How, then, do parents respond to the reduction of their partner's care? Theoretical models predict that parents that feed offspring should partially compensate for the reduced care of their partner. However, for incubating birds partial compensation is unlikely the optimal strategy, because the entire brood can fail with reduced care. Although biparental incubation dominates in non-passerine birds, short-term manipulations of parental care and evaluations of individual differences in the response, both crucial to our understanding of parental cooperation, are scarce. Here, we describe the response of semipalmated sandpiper (Calidris pusilla) parents to a 24-hour removal of their partner during the incubation period, explore factors that can explain individual variation in the response, and describe how incubation rhythms changed after the removed parent returned. On average, the parents compensated partially for the absence of their partner's care (59%; 95%CI: 49-70%, N = 25 individuals). The level of compensation did not differ between the sexes. However, individual responses varied from no to full compensation (2-101%). In seven nests where the removed parent never returned, the widowed parent attended the nest for 0-10 days (median: 4 days).In contrast to patterns observed in undisturbed nests or in uniparental species, nest attendance during compensation tended to be higher during the warmer part of the day. Although the level of compensation was not related to the before-experimental share of incubation, more responsive parents (that left the nest earlier upon human approach) compensated more. The quality of incubation in the after-experimental period was lower than usual, but improved quickly over time. Our findings suggest that full compensation might be limited by energetic constraints or by variation in responsiveness to the absence of the partner. Nevertheless, semipalmated sandpiper parents are able to adjust their subsequent incubation behaviour to take full responsibility for the nest when widowed. Because (nearly) full compensation was the most common response, we speculate that all individuals attempt full compensation, but that some fail because their energy stores get depleted, or because they are less responsive to the absence of their partner.

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Section: Diverse Compensationsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: After-experimental Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Diverse Compensationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporary mate removal during incubation leads to variable compensation in a biparental shorebird

Bulla

Vâlcu

Rutten

et al. 2017

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…Western sandpipers breeding later in the season have shortened parental care and stopover duration to reduce predation risk at stopover sites, which suggests there may be a temporal threshold for successful fall migration for sandpipers (Jamieson et al, 2014;Lank et al, 2003;Ydenberg, Butler, Lank, Smith, & Ireland, 2004). If one parent departs more than a few days before the nest hatches, the clutch typically fails (Erckmann, 1981; but see Bulla et al, 2017), so advances in hatching dates may allow parents to successfully hatch a late nest while still meeting the optimal timing for departure on fall migration. (Stevenson & Bryant, 2000).…”

Section: Change Of Incubation Duration Under Climate Coolingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delayed egg‐laying and shortened incubation duration of Arctic‐breeding shorebirds coincide with climate cooling

Kwon

English

Weiser

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Biological impacts of climate change are exemplified by shifts in phenology. As the timing of breeding advances, the within‐season relationships between timing of breeding and reproductive traits may change and cause long‐term changes in the population mean value of reproductive traits. We investigated long‐term changes in the timing of breeding and within‐season patterns of clutch size, egg volume, incubation duration, and daily nest survival of three shorebird species between two decades. Based on previously known within‐season patterns and assuming a warming trend, we hypothesized that the timing of clutch initiation would advance between decades and would be coupled with increases in mean clutch size, egg volume, and daily nest survival rate. We monitored 1,378 nests of western sandpipers, semipalmated sandpipers, and red‐necked phalaropes at a subarctic site during 1993–1996 and 2010–2014. Sandpipers have biparental incubation, whereas phalaropes have uniparental incubation. We found an unexpected long‐term cooling trend during the early part of the breeding season. Three species delayed clutch initiation by 5 days in the 2010s relative to the 1990s. Clutch size and daily nest survival showed strong within‐season declines in sandpipers, but not in phalaropes. Egg volume showed strong within‐season declines in one species of sandpiper, but increased in phalaropes. Despite the within‐season patterns in traits and shifts in phenology, clutch size, egg volume, and daily nest survival were similar between decades. In contrast, incubation duration did not show within‐season variation, but decreased by 2 days in sandpipers and increased by 2 days in phalaropes. Shorebirds demonstrated variable breeding phenology and incubation duration in relation to climate cooling, but little change in nonphenological components of traits. Our results indicate that the breeding phenology of shorebirds is closely associated with the temperature conditions on breeding ground, the effects of which can vary among reproductive traits and among sympatric species.

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“…In birds and some other egg-laying species, incubation of eggs is a very important component of parental care with strong ramifications for offspring performance (Deeming and Ferguson 1991;Hepp et al 2015). Even within this one type of care species differ widely in the overall length of incubation, whether and how the sexes share incubation duty, and whether and how often males feed incubating females (e.g., Bulla et al 2017). Similarly, species differ strongly in nest attentiveness, that is, the percentage of daytime eggs are incubated (Conway and Martin 2000b;Deeming 2002;Matysioková et al 2011;Matysioková and Remeš 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of parental activity at the nest is shaped by the risk of nest predation and ambient temperature across bird species

Matysioková

Remeš

2018

Evolution

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Incubation is an important component of parental care in birds, and species differ widely in their incubation rhythm. In this comparative study, we focused on factors responsible for those differences. As hypothesized by A. Skutch, increased parental activity at the nest increases the probability of nest depredation. High risk of nest predation should therefore lead to the evolution of lower frequency of parental activity at the nest. We thus expected to find a negative relationship between frequency of nest visits and the risk of nest depredation. Using a large dataset of 256 species of passerines breeding worldwide, we found that the frequency of nest visits decreased as the risk of nest depredation increased and that this effect was strongest in tropical species. Further, foraging bouts were longer in species experiencing warmer ambient temperatures during incubation and those with domed nests. Incubation bouts were longer and frequency of nest visits was lower in species with higher body mass. Our results support the view that natural selection favors lower frequency of nests visits in species under higher risk of nest predation and demonstrate the importance of other factors (temperature, geographic space, nest type, and body mass) in shaping the evolution of incubation rhythm.

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Flexible parental care: Uniparental incubation in biparentally incubating shorebirds

Cited by 23 publications

References 31 publications

Temporary mate removal during incubation leads to variable compensation in a biparental shorebird

Temporary mate removal during incubation leads to variable compensation in a biparental shorebird

Delayed egg‐laying and shortened incubation duration of Arctic‐breeding shorebirds coincide with climate cooling

Evolution of parental activity at the nest is shaped by the risk of nest predation and ambient temperature across bird species

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