10.5061/DRYAD.4QRFJ6Q8M
Koenig, Walter
0000-0001-6207-1427
Cornell University
Haydock, Joseph
Gonzaga University
Dugdale, Hannah
University of Groningen
Walters, Eric
Old Dominion University
Are you my baby? Testing whether paternity affects behavior of cobreeder
male acorn woodpeckers
Dryad
dataset
2020
FOS: Biological sciences
National Science Foundation
https://ror.org/021nxhr62
IOS-1455881; IOS-1455949; IOS-1455900
Natural Environment Research Council
https://ror.org/02b5d8509
NE/I021748/1
2020-12-15T00:00:00Z
2020-12-15T00:00:00Z
en
396800 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Natural selection is expected to favor males that invest more in offspring
they sire. We investigated the relationship between paternity and male
behavior in the acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), cooperative
breeders that live in family groups including offspring that remain on
their natal territory, sometimes for years, and cobreeders of both sexes.
Regardless of group composition, only one communal nest is attended at a
time. Whereas cobreeding females share maternity equally, one male often
sires the majority of young in the group’s communal nest. Copulations are
rarely observed, and thus it has not been possible to link paternity to
sexual behavior. There were no differences among cobreeder males that did
or did not sire young in their propensity to roost in the nest cavity at
night. However, cobreeder males that attended females continuously prior
to egg-laying were more likely to successfully sire young than males that
did not, and the relative share of feeding visits and time spent at the
subsequent nest were positively related to a male’s realized paternity.
These differences in male behavior were partly due to differences among
males and partly to plasticity in male behavior covarying with paternity
share. Feedings by males successfully siring young also involved a larger
proportion of nutritionally valuable insect prey. Males are aware of their
paternity success, apparently because of their relative access to females
prior to egg-laying, and provide more paternal behavior at nests in which
they are more likely to have sired young.
Datasets are mostly from field observations combined with parentage analysis
Most of the fields are labeled so as to be self-explanatory in conjunction
with the published paper. NA = missing values. LED = Last Egg Date. There
are 3 datasets: (1) Mate_guard.xls has the data for individual
mate-guarding watches. It was used for the analyses in Table 2. (2)
Nocturnal_roosting.xls has the data for cobreeder male nocturnal roosting
in the nest cavity. It was used for part of Table 3. (3)
Provisioning_behavior.xls has the data for provisioning and feeding at the
nest by cobreeder males. It was the main datafile used for Table 3 (except
for the nocturnal roosting models), Table 4, and Table 5.