SONG QUALITY DOES NOT INDICATE MALE PARENTAL ABILITIES IN THE PIED FLYCATCHER FICEDULA HYPOLEUCA

Abstract

Summary Femalepied e ycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca prefer to mate with males having complex songs, but the benee ts of this preference are not known. One potential benee t might be that males with complex songs are of higher quality and thus contribute more to the feeding of the brood than males with simple songs. We tested this by recording the feeding rate of males in two different populations in Norway. Neither the feeding rate nor the male ¢s contribution to the feeding relative to his mate correlated signie cantly with song complexity (27 and 21 males studied, respectively). However, male feeding rate may beine uenced by femalefeeding effort. Therefore, we also recorded body mass change of 13-day-old nestlings of 30 males during a period of eight hours of enforced female absence. The males were matched in pairs according to brood size and, if necessary, nestlings were exchanged between broods to reduce initial differences in body mass. Both males in each pair were treated on the same day. The change in brood mass did not differ signie cantly between males with complex and simple songs, and the latter males did not lose more body mass than the former males during female absence. Thus, we conclude that female pied e ycatchers mated with males having large song repertoires do not seem to benee t in terms of increased feeding effort from their mates. 2) Helge Rinden is unfortunately not with us any longer. He had a tragic accident in the nature