Begging calls and mouth colouration as predictors of breeding success in blue tits
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Melero‑Romero, Pablo; Garrido Bautista, Jorge; Pérez-Rodríguez, Lorenzo; Ramos, Jaime Albino; Norte, Ana Cláudia; Moreno Rueda, GregorioEditorial
John Wiley & Sons
Materia
Begging behaviour Blue tit Breeding success
Date
2024-02-21Referencia bibliográfica
Melero-Romero, P., Garrido-Bautista, J., Pérez-Rodríguez, L., Ramos, J.A., Norte, A.C. and Moreno-Rueda, G. (2024), Begging calls and mouth colouration as predictors of breeding success in blue tits. J Zool. https://doi.org/10.1111/jzo.13156
Sponsorship
Project of the Consejería de Universidad, Investigación e Innovación de la Junta de Andalucía (A-RNM-48-UGR20), "una manera de hacer Europa", and a project from the National Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competition (CGL2017-84938-P), both cofinanced with FEDER funds from the European Union (EU), the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the strategic MARE program (MARE-UID/MAR/04292/2020); Project granted to the Associate Laboratory ARNET (LA/P/0069/2020); AUIP mobility grant and a FPU Pre-doctoral contract (FPU18/03034) from the Spanish Ministry of Education; The transitory norm contract DL57/2016/CP1370/CT89; Funding for open access charge by Universidad de Granda/CBUA.Abstract
Nestlings normally exhibit a mix of traits that attract parental care, such as postural
and vocal begging and carotenoid-based mouth colouration. These signals are
hypothesised to be signs of nestling needs (vocal begging) and quality (mouth colouration).
Therefore, we hypothesised that broods, where nestlings beg for less time
and display more saturated carotenoid-based mouth colouration, would have lower
nestling mortality. We tested these predictions in two wild blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
populations. The breeding success (here defined as the proportion of eggs
that produced fledglings) was related to nestling mouth flanges’ carotenoid-based
colour saturation. This means that blue tits that raised nestlings with more coloured
flanges had a higher within-population breeding success. Time spent in vocal begging,
by contrast, was not associated with breeding success. Hence, our findings
reveal that some communication signals displayed by nestlings (carotenoid-based
colouration) predict breeding success, in our study mostly reflecting the proportion
of eggs that hatched, while begging intensity does not, probably because the former
reflects a better maternal pre-laying condition and nestling physiological status in
the mid-term.