Abstract

We discovered variable modes of parental care in a breeding population of color-banded Veeries (Catharus fuscescens), a Nearctic-Neotropical migratory songbird, long thought to be socially monogamous, and performed a multi-locus DNA microsatellite analysis to estimate parentage and kinship in a sample of 37 adults and 21 offspring. We detected multiple mating in both sexes, and four modes of parental care that varied in frequency within and between years including multiple male feeders at some nests, and males attending multiple nests in the same season, each with a different female. Unlike other polygynandrous systems, genetic evidence indicates that multi-generational patterns of kinship occur among adult Veeries at our study site, and this was corroborated by the capture of an adult male in 2013 that had been banded as a nestling in 2011 at a nest attended by multiple male feeders. All genotyped adults (n = 37) were related to at least one other bird in the sample at the cousin level or greater (r ≥ 0.125), and 81% were related to at least one other bird at the half-sibling level or greater (r ≥ 0.25, range 0.25–0.60). Although our sample size is small, it appears that the kin structure is maintained by natal philopatry in both sexes, and that Veeries avoid mating with close genetic kin. At nests where all adult feeders were genotyped (n = 9), the male(s) were unrelated to the female (mean r = -0.11 ± 0.15), whereas genetic data suggest close kinship (r = 0.254) between two male co-feeders at the nests of two females in 2011, and among three of four females that were mated to the same polygynous male in 2012. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of polygynandry occurring among multiple generations of close genetic kin on the breeding ground of a Nearctic-Neotropical migratory songbird.

Highlights

  • A primary goal of evolutionary biology is to explain the proximate and ultimate causes of mating system diversity [1,2]

  • Multi-generational kinship occurs among Veeries at our study site, among and between SY and ASY adults of both sexes

  • Our sample size was modest, the genetic structure that we detected among birds of known age can only have resulted from a non-zero rate of natal philopatry over multiple years

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Summary

Introduction

A primary goal of evolutionary biology is to explain the proximate and ultimate causes of mating system diversity [1,2]. Polygyny is expected to be the default strategy of males, unless they are thwarted by social and/or environmental conditions—monogamy represents a less-thanideal scenario for males, relative to polygyny. In this context, multiple mating may be a counter strategy by which females mated to polygynous males mitigate the risk of mate desertion [3], augment parental support [7,8], minimize reproductive failure because of genetic incompatibility or semen storage failure [9], and/or produce genetically diverse offspring [10], among other hypotheses

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