Species differences in male parental care in birds: A reexamination of correlates with paternity

Abstract

Avian species differ markedly in the extent to which males contribute to pre-hatching and posthatching parental care. In a recent comparatives study, Moller and Birkhead (1993) concluded that diversity in male parental care was associated with differences among species in extrapair paternity. Specifically, their results showed a significant inverse relationship between extrapair paternity and male contributions to feeding of nestlings. We used a revised and updated data set in an attempt to replicate their study. In contrast to their results, we found no evidence that the evolution of male posthatching care was strongly correlated with paternity. Instead, our results showed that male participation in incubation tends to be negatively associated with extrapair fertilization rates, thereby providing tentative support for Ketterson and Nolan's (1994) hypothesis that this particular form of parental care may be especially restrictive to male extrapair mating activities.