Polyandry is widespread and influences patterns of sexual selection, with implications for sexual conflict over mating. Assessing sperm precedence patterns is a first step towards understanding sperm competition within a female and elucidating the roles of male- and female-controlled factors. In this study behavioural field data and genetic data were combined to investigate polyandry in the cho...

Single components of the immune system are widely used to assess immune function in free-living vertebrates. However, as different immunological components are triggered by different types of threats and may be regulated independently, there is little reason to assume that they should respond similarly if challenged. We investigated whether three commonly assayed immune responses, cutaneous imm...

Studies of kin recognition in birds have usually examined parent-offspring recognition, while studies of sibling recognition are relatively rare. Using choice experiments, we studied the development of sibling recognition among common tern, Sterna hirundo, chicks and tested the cues used for recognition. We collected newly hatched common tern chicks and raised them in a laboratory in 10 artific...

Altricial birds are unable to maintain body temperature when exposed to low ambient temperatures during the first days after hatching. Thermoregulatory capacity begins to form as postnatal development progresses, and eventually nestlings become homeothermic. Several factors may influence this development at both the level of the individual and the level of the whole brood, but to our knowledge ...

Increased variance in the reproductive success of males relative to females favors mothers that optimally allocate sons and daughters to maximize their fitness return. In altricial songbirds, one influence on the fitness prospects of offspring arises through the order in which nestlings hatch from their eggs, which affects individual mass and size before nest leaving. In house wrens (Troglodyte...

--In Dark-eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis), we have shown that male participation in care of the young usually has a small effect on the number of nestlings that leave the nest and markedly improves survival of fledglings to the age of independence. Here we ask whether male participation also improves male reproductive success by enhancing female condition for future reproductive efforts. We captur...

Abstract We developed a new type of generalized depletion model adapted to the rapid life cycle Octopus vulgaris and data collection framework put in place its co-managed small-scale fishery (SSF) Asturias, northwest Spain. The uses weekly from 19 seasons estimate annual recruitment female spawners emigration out vulnerable stock attend their broods. matched spawners-recruitment (SR) magnitudes...

I observed a male Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) attack and kill a nestling of an unidentified passerine in a grassland field in Day County, South Dakota, in June 2000. The killing or removal of nestlings by female cowbirds has been reported by others, but this behavior has not been documented previously in male cowbirds. Received 8 October 2002, accepted 3 March 2003. Female Brown-heade...