Cooperatively breeding superb fairy-wrens show no facultative manipulation of offspring sex ratio despite plausible benefits

Abstract

We report a long-term study of offspring sex ratios in the cooperatively breeding superb fairy-wren Malurus cyaneus. Detailed study of this species had revealed a suite of potentially strong selection pressures on the sex ratio. First, females gain substantial fitness benefits from the presence of helpers; so females without male helpers would benefit from any strategy that increased the probability of recruiting help, such as overproduction of sons (local resource enhancement hypothesis), but large numbers of helper males compete among themselves, favouring the production of daughters (local resource competition). Second, daughters fledged early in the season have far greater chances of recruitment to the breeding population than late-fledged daughters, so mothers would benefit from production of daughters early in the breeding season (early bird hypothesis). Third, extra-group mate choice imposes strong sexual selection on males, suggesting that females mating with attractive sires could benefit from investing in sons (sexual selection hypothesis). However, the predictions from these and other sex ratio hypotheses were rejected. The only convincing evidence for manipulation of the sex ratio was a slight bias towards sons (11 sons to 10 daughters) that occurred regardless of context. This result does not support current theory.