Abstract
Because parental care is costly, conflict between mates over their roles in reproduction seems unavoidable unless they both benefit from parental labour split equally between partners. In the current paper we analyse the division of parental investment in the Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), a species that experiences high nest predation. We show that both sexes invest in the incubation of eggs as well as feeding and brooding nestlings at a similar level. We also found that pairs which divided feeding duties more equally produced nestlings that grew faster. Faster nestling development enables earlier fledging in case of predation attempts at the end of nesting period. Thus parents who more evenly participate in provisioning may benefit from higher breeding success. Our findings suggest that in species under high risk of nest predation disparity in parental investment may not provide much benefit to parent’s residual reproductive value and that equality in parental duties constitutes a winning strategy.
Highlights
Sexual conflict between parents may occur if the evolutionary interests of males and females do not coincide [1,2,3]
During our project (2008–2015) we collected the data of nest predation and we found an undeniable attempt of predation on nine-day-old nestlings in up to three nests a year, which makes altogether 14 documented cases
Previous studies conducted by other researchers suggest that the division of parental care between mates plays an important role in nestling growth
Summary
Sexual conflict between parents may occur if the evolutionary interests of males and females do not coincide [1,2,3]. Despite the fact that both conflict and cooperation shape interrelationships between individuals, modern ecological theory mainly focuses on competition and diminishes the importance of positive interactions between organisms [10,11]. Monogamy with bi-parental care is the most common breeding pattern in birds [12], yet parental similarity has rarely been investigated so far. Most studies have tested the hypothesis of sexual conflict and focused on different investment strategies of males and females [1]. The issue of how similar parents are in care behaviour has been studied less often
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