Incubation Behaviour in Northern Lapwings: Nocturnal Nest Attentiveness and Possible Importance of Individual Breeding Quality

Abstract

Previous studies of sex roles in the polygynous Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus have shown that males incubate less than females, perhaps suggesting that sexual selection is important in shaping the parental behaviour of this species. The purpose of this study was to (1) examine for the first time the possibility that males compensate for low diurnal nest attentiveness by increasing their nocturnal assistance and (2) evaluate the hypotheses that sexual selection and individual breeding quality determines incubation behaviour in lapwings. Males were never found incubating at night in 19 nests, although median diurnal male attentiveness was 15.3% in 16 of the same pairs. Nor were there any differences among monogamous and polygynous males in the time spent in four categories of behaviour (incubation, guarding, maintenance and mating activities). The time males spent in mating and incubation behaviours was weakly negatively correlated, and the time spent incubating varied considerably among males (0-74%). Further, female body condition was positively related with male nest attentiveness and there was a negative relationship between nest attentiveness and date of arrival to the study area in monogamous, but not in polygynous, males. We argue that sexual selection could not alone explain all sides of Northern Lapwing incubation, and suggest that individual differences in breeding quality may also be important.

Is clutch size limited by incubation ability in northern lapwings?

“…Because female northern lapwings incubate more than males, their energetics should be more affected by an enlarged clutch size than males’. The variance in the sexes’ nest attentiveness is large, though (Lislevand et al . 2003), and larger sample sizes than we have available here might be needed to detect changes in incubation behaviour.…”

“…Some studies have reported five eggs in up to 1% of lapwing nests (Cramp & Simmons 1983), but of totally 450 clutches from south‐west Norway 1991–2002, none contained more than four eggs (own unpublished data). Females incubate more than males (during daytime on average about 65% of the time compared to 20% in males), and at night they incubate alone (Parish & Coulson 1998; Liker & Székely 1999; Lislevand et al . in press).…”

Chick growth and survival in northern lapwings Vanellus vanellus indicate that secondary females do the best of a bad job

“…Second, sharing paternal effort with another female could potentially be a problem. In lapwings, males primarily contribute to parental care by taking part in incubation (about 15% on a diurnal basis; Lislevand et al 2004) and by chasing predators, whereas brooding and leading chicks to foraging areas are almost exclusively female tasks (Liker and Székely 1999, Shrubb 2007). To our knowledge, it is not known if polygynous male lapwings provide differential care to their broods after hatching but, if anything, they tend to favour secondary rather than primary clutches during incubation (Grønstøl 2003).…”

Diverse incubation rhythms in a facultatively uniparental shorebird – the Northern Lapwing

“…Here, we used continuous video-monitoring to describe incubation rhythms of the Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus, a common Palearctic shorebird with variable male contribution to incubation (Liker & Szekely 1999; Grønstøl 2003; Jongbloed et al 2006). Current knowledge about incubation of Northern Lapwings is mostly based on brief sampling periods of a few hours (Liker & Szekely 1999; Grønstøl 2003; Lislevand et al 2004; Lislevand & Byrkjedal 2004; but see Jongbloed et al 2006). Subsequently, we know little about the daily and seasonal variation in how sexes divide their incubation duties between and within pairs.…”