Incubation feeding by male Scarlet Tanagers: a mate removal experiment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Incubation feeding, where males feed their mates, is a common behavior in birds and may improve female condition, nest attentiveness, and nesting success. We used behavioral observations and a temporary mate removal experiment to test the female nutrition hypothesis for incubation feeding by male Scarlet Tanagers (Piranga olivacea). All males (N= 20) were observed incubation feeding and fed females both at the nest (x̄ 1.36 trips/h) and away from the nest (x̄ 20.1 trips/h). Male feeding rate off-nest was negatively correlated with the duration of female foraging bouts and positively correlated with the total time females spent incubating per hour. Eggs were predated at seven of 19 (37%) nests, but nest survival during incubation was not related to either female incubation behavior or male feeding rate. During temporary removal experiments (N= 12), female Scarlet Tanagers remained on the nest significantly longer and did not have longer foraging bouts. An unexpected outcome of the removal experiments was a dramatic change in female vocal behavior. All 12 experimental females gave chik-burr calls during the male-removal experiments (x̄ bout length = 11.7 min), but during normal observation periods only six of 20 females at the incubation stage gave chik-burr calls (x̄ bout length = 0.7 min, N= 20). Our results suggest that female tanagers likely gain nutritional benefits from incubation feeding, but male feeding may not improve immediate reproductive success. Nine of 54 (17%) nestlings in five of 17 broods (29%) were extra-pair young (EPY), indicating that males could potentially benefit from incubation feeding via mate retention and fidelity as well as, or instead of, through immediate gains in reproductive success. Our study indicates that females benefit from incubation feeding and do not simply passively accept food from their mates, but instead may influence male feeding rates through direct (e.g., mate following and vocalizing) and indirect (the threat of mate abandonment or cuckoldry) means. La alimentación a la hembra mientras esta incuba, por parte del macho es una conducta común en las aves, que puede mejorar la condición de la hembra, la atención al nido y el éxito de anidamiento. Utilizamos observaciones de su conducta y un experimento de remoción del macho para poner a pruebas la hipótesis de nutrición a la hembra por parte del macho, durante la incubación en Piranga olivacea. Todos los machos (N= 20) fueron observados alimentar hembras que incubaban tanto dentro (1.36 viajes/h) como fuera del nido (20.1 viajes/h). La tasa de alimentación fuera del nido se correlacionó negativamente con la duración de viajes de forrajeo por parte de la hembra y correlacionó positivamente con el tiempo total que las hembras pasaron incubando. En siete de 19 nidos (37%) los huevos fueron depredados. Sin embargo, la supervivencia del contenido del nido durante la incubación no estuvo relacionada a la incubación por la hembra o a la tasa de alimentación por los machos. En los experimentos de remoción temporal de los machos (N= 12), las hembras permanecieron en el nido por periodos significativamente más largos y no exhibieron mayor duración de tiempo en sus viajes de forrajeo. Un resultado inesperado de los experimentos de remoción, fue el cambio dramático en la vocalizacion por parte de hembras. Las 12 hembras “solitarias” produjeron llamadas durante los experimentos de remoción (periodo promedio del evento 11.7 minutos), pero durante el periodo normal de observación, solo seis de estas produjeron dichas llamadas (periodo promedio del evento (0.7 minutos; N= 20). Los resultados sugieren que las hembras obtienen ventajas nutricionales al ser alimentadas por los machos durante la incubación. Pero, la alimentación por parte de estos no necesariamente produce resultados inmediatos en el éxito reproductivo. Observamos copulaciones con otros miembros que no eran de la pareja en 5/17 (29%) de las camadas y en 9/54 (17%) pichones, lo que tiende a indicar que potencialmente los machos pudieran beneficiarse de dicha conducta alimentaria, ya sea reteniendo sus parejas, incrementando la fidelidad por parte de las hembras o de una ganancia inmediata en el éxito reproductivo. Nuestro estudio indica que las hembras se benefician al ser alimentadas durante la incubación y no simplemente aceptando comida pasivamente de sus parejas. Estas muy bien pudieran influir en la tasa de alimentación (por parte de los machos) de forma directa (ej. el macho siguiéndola, vocalizando) o indirectamente (la amenaza de abandono o de serles infiel).
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".