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Extra‐pair paternity is not repeatable between years in Pied Flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca): a role for social context

Abstract:

Extra‐pair paternity (EPP) is the consequence of the interactions between a social pair and extra‐pair males during the female's fertile phase in a specific social context and ecological environment. Although EPP occurs in many avian species, there is a lack of understanding of how environmental factors may impact its frequency. Accordingly, the relative importance of individual characteristics on the one hand, and of their immediate social environment on the other, may affect EPP repeatability and thereby the capacity of this trait to respond to selection. If EPP is an individual genetically‐based trait which may respond to selection, we expect it to be repeatable across breeding seasons. To check this possibility, we analyzed the within‐individual repeatability in EPP of breeding males and females in two natural populations of pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca in central Spain during three field seasons. We then …