More colourful eggs induce a higher relative paternal investment in the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca: a cross‐fostering experiment

Abstract:

The signalling hypothesis of eggshell colouration in birds posits that females of species with blue‐green eggs signal their phenotypic quality or the quality of their eggs to their mates through deposition of the antioxidant biliverdin as pigment. Males respond by investing more in the offspring. Through a cross‐fostering experiment where we have exchanged whole clutches between pairs of pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca nests, we managed to break potential associations between female quality and clutch chromaticity. We show that males respond to incubated clutches with more variable and higher peak values in blue‐green chroma through a higher proportional investment in nestling provisioning on day 4 of the nestling period, when males invest more heavily than females in provisioning. More variable clutches show higher peak chroma values. We also show that egg colour during the two‐week incubation …

Año de publicación:

2006

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