Structural (UV) and carotenoid-based plumage coloration - signals for parental investment?

ABSTRACT: Parental care increases parental fitness through improved offspring condition and survival but comes at a cost for the caretaker(s). To increase life-time fitness, caring parents are, therefore, expected to adjust their reproductive investment to current environmental conditions and parental capacities. The latter is thought to be signaled via ornamental traits of the bearer. We here investigated whether pre- and/or posthatching investment of blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) parents was related to ornamental plumage traits (UV crown coloration and carotenoid-based plumage coloration) expressed by either the individual itself (i.e. "good parent hypothesis") or its partner (i.e. "differential allocation hypothesis"). Our results show that neither prehatching (that is clutch size and offspring

SUBMITTER: Lucass C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4870211 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature