Loss of Mass in Breeding Wrens: Stress or Adaptation?

Freed, Leonard A.

doi:10.2307/1937282

Cited by 223 publications

(156 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…This change is traditionally interpreted as either a sign of stress (Ricklefs 1974;Nur 1984) or an adaptation to increase flight efficiency during a demanding period of brood rearing (Freed 1981;Norberg 1981;Houston 1993;Hillström 1995). Our model raises the possibility of a novel explanation for this mass loss; the parents lose mass to manipulate their mate's behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Sexual Conflict about Parental Care: The Role of Reserves

Barta¹,

Houston²,

McNamara³

et al. 2002

The American Naturalist

105

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Parental care often increases the survival of offspring, but it is costly to parents. Because of this trade-off, a sexual conflict over care arises. The solution to this conflict depends on the interactions between the male and female parents, the behavior of other animals in the population, and the individual differences within a sex. We take an integrated approach and develop a state-dependent dynamic game model of parental care. The model investigates a single breeding season in which the animals can breed several times. Each parent's decision about whether to care for the brood or desert depends on its own energy reserves, its mate's reserves, and the time in the season. We develop a fully consistent solution in which the behavior of an animal is the best given the behavior of its mate and of all other animals in the population. The model predicts that females may strategically reduce their own reserves so as to "force" their mate to provide care. We investigate how the energy costs of caring and searching for a mate, values of care (how the probability of offspring survival depends on the pattern of care), and population sex ratio influence the pattern of care over the breeding season.Keywords: sexual conflict, parental care, offspring desertion, dynamic game, reserves, body mass regulation.Parental care is an energetically demanding behavior (Ricklefs 1974;Golet and Irons 1999;Hõrak et al. 1999 and thus, parents should have sufficient reserves to raise their young to independence. Parents in poor condition may terminate care and abandon their nest or young (Snyder et al. 1989;Olsson 1997; reviewed by Clutton-Brock 1991;Székely et al. 1996). Given that energy reserves play an important role in determining patterns of care, an evolutionary account of care should adopt a state-dependent approach (Houston et al. 1988;Houston and McNamara 1999;Clark and Mangel 2000). State-dependent models have been developed to investigate the decision of a single sex by Kelly and Kennedy (1993) and Webb et al. (in press). For instance, Kelly and Kennedy (1993) showed that female Cooper's hawks Accipiter cooperi should desert their young when their reserves fall below a critical level. In their model, however, the behavior of deserting females was constrained by their not allowing the females to remate. In a more general model by Webb et al. (in press), a deserting female can remate and renest within the same breeding season. Interestingly, their model found that a female deserts not only when her reserves are low (and thus she is threatened by starvation) but also when her reserves are high. In the latter case, the deserting female immediately starts to search for a new mate and thus increases her reproductive success by remating.In many birds, fish, and mammals, however, the payoffs from caring and deserting not only depend on the environment and the energy reserves of the parents but also on the behavior of other animals in the population. First, the success of the current breeding attempt depends on whether the ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Sexual Conflict about Parental Care: The Role of Reserves

Barta¹,

Houston²,

McNamara³

et al. 2002

The American Naturalist

105

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“…Mass loss during incubation has been interpreted as an adaptive response to increase foraging efficiency by reducing flight costs or as a consequence of physiological stress. [21][22][23][24] If mass decrease in Common Terns is an adaptive strategy, it should occur in any year. In this study, however, the change in body mass of incubating females differed between years.…”

Section: Incubationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body mass change in breeding Common TernsSterna hirundo

Wendeln¹,

Becker²

1996

Bird Study

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“…In birds, body mass loss has been considered a strategy to reduce maintenance cost during energy-costly activities such as reproduction (Freed, 1981;Norberg, 1981;Cavitt and Thomson, 1997;Bech et al, 2002), locomotion (Deerenberg et al, 1998;Elliott et al, 2008) and moulting (Portugal et al, 2007). Several studies have reported body mass losses in different species of aquatic birds during the adjustment period to saltwater (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the energetic costs of living in saline environments: effects of salinity on basal metabolic rate, body mass and daily energy consumption of a long-distance migratory shorebird

Gutiérrez

Masero

Abad‐Gómez

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYMany migratory vertebrates typically move between habitats with varying salinities during the annual cycle. These organisms clearly exhibit a remarkable phenotypic flexibility in their 'osmoregulatory machinery', but the metabolic consequences of salinity acclimatization are still not well understood. We investigated the effects of salinity on basal metabolic rate (BMR), body mass and daily energy consumption of a long-distance migratory shorebird, the dunlin (Calidris alpina), outside the breeding season. Masscorrected BMR and daily energy consumption increased significantly by 17 and 20% between freshwater (0.3‰ NaCl) and saltwater (33.0-35.0‰ NaCl), respectively. Body mass in both captive and wild dunlins was lower (9-16%) in saline than in freshwater environments. These changes on BMR and body mass were quickly reversed by returning the birds to freshwater, suggesting that metabolic adjustment to saltwater and metabolic readjustment to freshwater are both processes that occur in a few days. Our findings support empirically that the processes of developing and maintaining an active osmoregulatory machinery are energetically expensive, and they could help to explain diet and/or habitat selection patterns along the flyway. Finally, we discuss whether body mass loss in saltwater may be a strategy to reduce maintenance cost in osmotically stressful conditions such as overwintering in marine habitats, and raise some methodological implications for studies of BMR-related outcomes using captive birds captured in saline environments.

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Loss of Mass in Breeding Wrens: Stress or Adaptation?

Cited by 223 publications

References 22 publications

Sexual Conflict about Parental Care: The Role of Reserves

Sexual Conflict about Parental Care: The Role of Reserves

Body mass change in breeding Common TernsSterna hirundo

Understanding the energetic costs of living in saline environments: effects of salinity on basal metabolic rate, body mass and daily energy consumption of a long-distance migratory shorebird

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