Prey size and nestling gape size affect allocation within broods of the Mountain Bluebird

Abstract

The allocation of prey within broods of altricial nestlings may be the result of parents targeting certain offspring preferentially and/or the result of intrabrood competition related to features of nestlings such as body size. We investigated two mechanisms that could influence allocation of food within broods of Mountain Bluebirds (Sialia currucoides) by filming the size and type of prey that parents fed nestlings. According to the gape size constraint hypothesis, the inability of small nestlings to physically swallow large prey items might place junior brood members at a higher risk of starvation than older siblings if parents do not bring enough small items. Consistent with this idea, the frequency of ‘testing’, placing an item in the gape of a nestling but then withdrawing it, was positively correlated with prey size. The junior nestling of a brood was fed less often when parents brought larger prey items, and nestlings were tested more in the early nestling stage (0–4 days old) when their gapes were smaller than at older stages. Parents of many cavity-nesting species may feed the brood from the nest entrance and the resulting scramble competition among brood members to access the entrance hole also potentially increases the mortality of the least competitive (smallest) nestlings. Although the frequency of feeding from the entrance hole was prevalent during the late nestling stage (≥ 12 days old), feeding from the entrance was not associated with mortality rate in bluebird broods and the mortality of junior nestlings was not linked to the testing of prey. The results confirm that a mechanism of gape size constraint does direct large prey away from junior nestlings, but apparently small-sized prey items were abundant enough during our study so that this did not result in increased mortality of nestlings.