Influence of helping and breeding experience on reproductive performance in the Seychelles warbler: a translocation experiment

Abstract

Reproductive success of the cooperative breeding Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis) increases with age. This age effect is not due to differential survival or increased reproductive effort, but to accumulated helping and breeding experience. In their first year of breeding, reproductive performance of inexperienced warblers with neither helping nor breeding experience was significandy lower than that of warblers of the same age with either previous helping or breeding experience. Reproductive performance was die same for primiparae witii helping experience and for birds with breeding experience. Female primiparae with helping experience or breeding experience built better nests and spent more time incubating than inexperienced females, which led to increased hatching success. Male primiparae with helping experience or males with breeding experience guarded the clutch better than inexperienced males, which led to reduced egg predation. Even-aged warblers with different previous experiences were transferred to unoccupied islands, where birds started breeding immediately in high-quality territories. The experiment showed that birds with helping experience produced their first fledgling as fast as experienced breeders, and significandy faster dian inexperienced birds. Breeding performance did not improve further widi experience after the first successful breeding attempt. Only birds with previous breeding experience who paired with inexperienced birds, were likely to change mate. The odier pair combinations remained stable. Thus, primiparous birds with helping experience have greater lifetime reproductive success dian inexperienced primiparae of the same age. This experiment shows that helping behavior has not only been selected for in die context of promoting an individual's indirect fitness, but also in die context of gaining helping experience which translates into improved reproductive success when a helper becomes a breeder.

Integrating cooperative breeding into theoretical concepts of cooperation

“…In particular, group augmentation has to be explored in much more detail if we are to understand fully the evolutionary stability of investments in the system under study. Other concepts proposed in the cooperative breeding literature may also be analysed in the same way in the future, including task sharing (Taborsky, 1994;Lacey and Sherman, 1997;Clutton-Brock et al, 2003;Arnold et al, 2005), redirected helping (Emlen, 1982;Dickinson and Hatchwell, 2004), strategic between group dispersal (Bergmüller et al, 2005a), load lightening (Crick, 1992;Heinsohn, 2004), kinship deceit (Connor and Curry, 1995), parental facilitation (of territorial inheritance) (Brown and Brown, 1984), skill acquisition (Brown, 1987;Komdeur, 1996) and between group competition (Brooke and Hartley, 1995;Cockburn, 1998).…”

Road Effects on Food Availability and Energetic Intake in Florida Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens)

“…Most studies of other cooperative breeding systems have similarly found little evidence that prior experience directly affects future reproductive performance (Komdeur 1996, Khan and Walters 1997, Koenig and Walters 2011, DuVal 2013.…”

“…However, some males first obtain breeding status by direct inheritance of their natal territory, and others by territorial budding, in which they begin to defend part of their natal territory and pair with a dispersing nonbreeder or a nearby widowed female. Dispersal is female-biased, but juveniles less than a year old are extremely sedentary and only rarely disperse (Woolfenden and Fitzpatrick 1984, 1996, Mumme 1992, Townsend et al 2011.…”

Restoration of a tropical island: Cousine Island, Seychelles

“…Also, various scientists were encouraged to visit the island to undertake various studies of key species and processes, such as reptiles (Bourquin and Hitchins 1998), Seychelles giant millipede biology (Lawrence and Samways 2003), assessment of the invertebrates of the leaf litter and logs (Kelly and Samways 2003), spider assessments (Saaristo 1999), colonization by dragonflies (Samways 1998(Samways , 2003a, Seychelles warbler (Komdeur 1994(Komdeur , 1995 and Seychelles magpie robin biology (Komdeur 1996;LeMaitre 2002), turtle biometrics and nesting biology (Hitchins et al 2003a(Hitchins et al , b, 2004a(Hitchins et al , b, 2006, and marine assessments (Samways 2003a, b;Samways and Hatton 2001).…”