Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2021.0579
Publication Title
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume
288
Issue
1957
Pages
1-8
Abstract
Cooperative breeding strategies lead to short-term direct fitness losses when individuals forfeit or share reproduction. The direct fitness benefits of cooperative strategies are often delayed and difficult to quantify, requiring data on lifetime reproduction. Here, we use a longitudinal dataset to examine the lifetime reproductive success of cooperative polygamy in acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus), which nest as lone pairs or share reproduction with same-sex cobreeders. We found that males and females produced fewer young per successful nesting attempt when sharing reproduction. However, males nesting in duos and trios had longer reproductive lifespans, more lifetime nesting attempts and higher lifetime reproductive success than those breeding alone. For females, cobreeding in duos increased reproductive lifespan so the lifetime reproductive success of females nesting in duos was comparable to those nesting alone and higher than those nesting in trios. These results suggest that for male duos and trios, reproductive success alone may provide sufficient fitness benefits to explain the presence of cooperative polygamy, and the benefits of cobreeding as a duo in females are higher than previously assumed. Lifetime individual fitness data are crucial to reveal the full costs and benefits of cooperative polygamy.
Rights
© 2021 The Authors.
Published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability
Article states: "We have made the data available as electronic supplementary material."
"Electronic supplementary material is available online at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5542630."
Original Publication Citation
Barve, S., Riehl, C., Walters, E. L., Haydock, J., Dugdale, H. L., & Koenig, W. D. (2021). Lifetime reproductive benefits of cooperative polygamy vary for males and females in the acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288(1957), 1-8, Article 20210579. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0579
Repository Citation
Barve, Sahas; Riehl, Christina; Walters, Eric L.; Haydock, Joseph; Dugdale, Hannah L.; and Koenig, Walter D., "Lifetime Reproductive Benefits of Cooperative Polygamy Vary for Males and Females in the Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus)" (2021). Biological Sciences Faculty Publications. 460.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/biology_fac_pubs/460
ORCID
0000-0002-9414-5758 (Walters)