Reproductive performance in lesser snow geese: are two parents essential?

Abstract

The roles of male and female lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens) in offspring care are well documented, but we know little about flexibility in these roles and how essential they are for offspring survival. We asked whether uni-parental care was adequate, which sex was required at various stages of the reproductive cycle, and what the costs and consequences were of variable amounts of parental care. We found that two parents were important in acquiring nest sites and producing clutches. Widows losing mates during the latter part of laying or in early incubation experienced similar rates of success in hatching clutches to paired females, but males losing mates during incubation experienced total nest failure. Partial clutch loss, hatch loss, intraspecific nest parasitism, duration of incubation periods and gosling weights at hatch did not differ for pairs or widows. In 1983 at La Perouse Bay, Manitoba, Canada, widows and pairs had similar incubation behaviour, but widows were harassed more and spent more time in full alert posture while on their nests. In 1952 and 1953 at Southhampton Island, Northwest Territories, widows were significantly lighter in body weight prior to hatch than paired females. Thus while widows can bring clutches to hatch successfully, the loss of mates may result in additional physiological costs. Although all possibilities have not been tested experimentally, it appears that costs to uni-parental care up to hatch are not significant. Data collected so far on consequences of uni-parental care provided during the post-hatch period are equivocal, as in one year survival of goslings from single parent broods seemed poor and in another it did not appeart to differ from pairs. The minimum amount of parental care required to raise snow goslings from hatch to recruitment has yet to be determined.