The amount of care parents provide to the offspring is complicated by an evolutionary conflict of interest (‘sexual conflict’) between the two parents. Recent theoretical models suggest that pair coordination of the provisioning may reduce this conflict and increase parent and offspring fitness. Despite empirical studies showing that pair coordination is common in avian species, it remains unclear how environmental and ecological conditions might promote or limit the ability of parents to coordinate care. We compared the level of pair coordination, measured as alternation and synchrony of the nest visits, of house wrens
Extra‐pair paternity (EPP) is a widespread phenomenon in birds. Researchers have long hypothesized that EPP must confer a fitness advantage to extra‐pair offspring (EPO), but empirical support for this hypothesis is definitively mixed. This could be because genetic benefits of EPP only exist in a subset of environmental contexts to which a population is exposed. From 2013 to 2015, we manipulated perceived predator density in a population of tree swallows (
- PAR ID:
- 10457703
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Evolutionary Biology
- Volume:
- 33
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1010-061X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 282-296
- Size(s):
- p. 282-296
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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