Male age is associated with extra-pair paternity, but not with extra-pair mating behaviour.

ABSTRACT: Extra-pair paternity is the result of copulation between a female and a male other than her social partner. In socially monogamous birds, old males are most likely to sire extra-pair offspring. The male manipulation and female choice hypotheses predict that age-specific male mating behaviour could explain this old-over-young male advantage. These hypotheses have been difficult to test because copulations and the individuals involved are hard to observe. Here, we studied the mating behaviour and pairing contexts of captive house sparrows, Passer domesticus. Our set-up mimicked the complex social environment experienced by wild house sparrows. We found that middle-aged males, which would be considered old in natural populations, gained most extra-pair paternity. However, both, female solicit

SUBMITTER: Girndt A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5976671 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature