Abstract
BackgroundLong-lived seabirds face a conflict between current and lifelong reproductive success. During incubation shifts, egg neglect is sometimes necessary to avoid starvation, but may compromise the current reproductive attempt. However, factors underlying this decision process are poorly understood. We focus on the ancient murrelet, Synthliboramphus antiquus, an alcid with exceptionally long incubation shift lengths, and test the impact of environmental factors on incubation shift length in relation to reproductive success.Methodology/Principal FindingsUsing an information theoretic approach, we show that incubation shift length was a strong predictor of reproductive success for ancient murrelets at Reef Island, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada during the 2007 and 2008 breeding seasons. The most important factors explaining an individual's shift length were egg size, wind speed and the length of the mate's previous shift. Wind speed and tide height were the two most important factors for determining foraging behavior, as measured by dive frequency and depth.Conclusions/SignificanceOur study demonstrates that (i) species-specific reproductive strategies interact with environmental conditions such as wind speed to form multiple incubation patterns and (ii) maintaining regular incubation shifts is an essential component of reproductive success.
Highlights
Life-history theory predicts that fitness is optimized by balancing investment in current reproduction with costs of reducing an individual’s ability to invest in future reproduction [1]
Maintaining incubation shift length in seabirds is critical and this is especially true for ancient murrelets Synthliboramphus antiquus which do not feed their chicks at the nest
We show that our predictions hold true in ancient murrelets at our particular study site, which provides us with a novel understanding of the proximate factors influencing the incubation shift length in a seabird and of the importance of environmental conditions on reproductive success
Summary
Life-history theory predicts that fitness is optimized by balancing investment in current reproduction with costs of reducing an individual’s ability to invest in future reproduction [1]. One set of life-history decisions that birds face during the breeding season is the timing, frequency, and duration of their visits to the nest [2]. These decisions are reflected by the activities of individual birds, who try to maintain body condition and minimize predation risk [3], with the ultimate goal of maximizing reproductive fitness. Egg neglect is sometimes necessary to avoid starvation, but may compromise the current reproductive attempt. Factors underlying this decision process are poorly understood. We focus on the ancient murrelet, Synthliboramphus antiquus, an alcid with exceptionally long incubation shift lengths, and test the impact of environmental factors on incubation shift length in relation to reproductive success
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