Breeding Biology II Flashcards
Mate Selection, Displays, and Site and Mate Fidelity
What are the benefits of monogamy?
- Biparental care
- Maximize efficiency of pair as one unit
What are factors of mate selection?
- Experience
- Better foraging skills - Territory
- Breeding success may vary among mating sites
What does the optimal age of mates depend on? Why?
- Residual reproductive vale (expected amount of reproductive output remaining in an individuals life)
- Duration of pair bond is maximized
What are some trade-offs with residual reproductive value?
- Younger individuals = more reproductive cycles
- Older individuals = more experienced
What is the “good genes” hypothesis?
Birds should seek mates whose genotype will provide offspring with the best combination of genes (ex: foraging skills, resource provisioning etc.)
What are indicators of good genes?
- Body mass and condition
- Date of return to colony (higher quality mates return earlier)
What is the threshold of mate quality?
It is better to mate with someone who is good enough rather than look for the best possible mate
What is the trade-off of searching for the best possible mate?
Limited amount of breeding time
What are some examples of displays?
- Calls or postures (ex: blue footed booby “skypointing”)
- Visual (ex: great frigatebird gular sac and vocalization)
- Ritualized and elaborate (ex: tropicbird ritualized flight and vocalization)
What are the functions of displays?
- Find a mate
- Strengthen pair bond
- Defend territory
- Communicate intentions to neighbors
What are the roles of males and females in displays?
Both play similar roles
What is site fidelity?
Returning to the same breeding site for more than one season
What are some benefits of site fidelity?
- Increased breeding success
- Better knowledge of neighbors and potential mates
- Dominance in territorial contests
What are some constraints of site fidelity?
- Low breeding success when remaining at poor quality site
- Failure to breed when remaining in the same territory after the loss of a mate
- Territorial defense = costly
What is mate fidelity?
Breeding with the same mate
What are some benefits of mate fidelity?
- Enhanced reproductive performance
- Higher life expectancy
- Better coordination between mates
- Easier to reunite, higher fledgling success
- Lay eggs earlier
- Experienced pairs = higher breeding success
What is the correlation between long-lived species and fidelity?
Long-lived species show high site and mate fidelity
What are some constraints of mate fidelity?
- One partner must remain with offspring while the other must return to the nest before its mate exhausts its body reserves
- Low quality mates = costly
- Widowers and divorcees = costly
What are some life history characteristics that are associated with fidelity?
- High longevity
- Reduced fecundity
- Low reproductive effort
- Maximize fitness
- Optimize reproductive outputs
How does the duration of foraging trips affect the evolution of life histories?
The farther from shore that a species feeds the higher the cost of chick rearing and the lower the fecundity
What are some constraints of biparental care?
- The egg must be incubated
- Long duration of foraging trips
What is an important prerequisite to nest / mate fidelity?
Individual recognition / chick recognition
Why is chick recognition important?
You want to enhance your own genes, not someone else’s by mistake
What are characteristics of mate recognition
- Visual
- Vocal
- Olfactory
