La Tour du Valat

Institut de recherche pour la conservation des zones humides méditerranéennes

Titre :	Experimental manipulation of timing of breeding suggests laying order instead of breeding synchrony affects extra-pair paternity in house sparrows
Auteurs :	Radovan Vaclav, Auteur ; Herbert Hoi, Auteur
Type de document :	Article
Dans :	Journal of Ornithology (148(4) OCT 2007)
Article en page(s) :	395-400
Langues:	Anglais
Résumé :	The timing of breeding may not only affect breeding patterns such as the overlap of chick rearing period with the peak in food availability but also the opportunity for extra-pair mating. A negative relationship has been predicted between extra-pair paternity and breeding synchrony, assuming that male extra-pair activity is traded against mate guarding and parenting duties. In contrast, if female ability to assess male quality is temporally constrained, sperm competition might be a positive function of breeding synchrony. Here we manipulated the progress of nesting by nest material exchange within nesting aggregations to see whether the timing of breeding affects extra-pair paternity in house sparrows. We found that late broods within nesting clusters contained extra-pair young more often than early broods, but breeding synchrony did not turn out to be a significant predictor of extra-pair paternity. Our study indicates that temporal constraints of male extra-pair activity may account for extra-pair paternity levels, but it is also possible that late-breeding females may accept extra-pair copulations to ensure egg fertilization.

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