Female brood desertion increases with number of available mates in the Rock Sparrow

Abstract

We studied the reproductive strategy of a Rock Sparrow Petronia petronia population, breeding in nest boxes in the Western Alps (Italy). Over seven years of study (1991-1997) 19% of the females laid second clutches after successfully fledging the first one. Among these, about 50% deserted the first nest when nestlings were 14.3 d old (range = 8-19 d), 3.6 d before fledging (range = 1-8 d). In all these cases the primary male mate took over all parental duties and successfully reared the young. Inter-clutch time of deserting females was 8.1 d shorter than that of non-deserting double-brooded females. The breeding success of deserting females was significantly greater than that of both single-brooded females and double-brooded females that did not desert their first brood. The fledging success of the second clutches depended on the status of the secondary male: females paired with previously unpaired males had a higher fledging success than those that paired with a polygynous male. The frequency of deserting females varied among years from 0 to 16%, and was significantly and positively correlated with the frequency of males available as mates at the time of desertion. In this study we showed that sequential polyandry with brood desertion is a regularly occurring strategy in the female Rock Sparrow.