McKinnon Rebekah A, Hedlin Erik, Hawkshaw Kevin, Mathot Kimberley J
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, CW 405, Biological Sciences Building, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada.
Nunavut Wildlife Cooperative Research Unit, University of Alberta, CW 405, Biological Sciences Building, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada.
R Soc Open Sci. 2024 Sep 25;11(9):240576. doi: 10.1098/rsos.240576. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Parents are expected to exhibit intermediate levels of investment in parental care that reflect the trade-off between current versus future reproduction. Providing parents with supplemental food may allow for increased care to the current brood (additive model), re-allocation of parental effort to other behaviours such as self-maintenance (substitution model), or may provide parents with a buffer against provisioning shortfalls (insurance model). We investigated the impact of parental food supplementation on provisioning behaviour and breeding success in Arctic-breeding peregrine falcons () over five successive breeding seasons (2013-2017). We found that supplemental feeding had no impact on mean provisioning rates, yet resulted in increased nestling survival probability, increased nestling body mass and decreased variance in nestling body mass and provisioning rates. These results are consistent with parents adopting a hybrid of the additive and substitution models. We suggest that food supplementation enables increased investment in other forms of parental care (e.g. nest defence, brooding) without altering mean provisioning rates. The lack of observed effects on mean provisioning rates, coupled with increased survival and body mass of offspring, suggests a potential reallocation of parental effort. The findings contribute to understanding the responses of peregrine falcons to food supplementation, highlighting the need for future studies to explore broader environmental contexts and potential long-term effects on parental survival and future reproduction.
预计父母会表现出中等水平的亲代抚育投入，这反映了当前繁殖与未来繁殖之间的权衡。给父母提供补充食物可能会增加对当前一窝雏鸟的抚育（累加模型），将亲代努力重新分配到其他行为上，比如自我维持（替代模型），或者可能为父母提供一个应对食物供应不足的缓冲（保险模型）。我们在连续五个繁殖季节（2013 - 2017年）研究了亲代食物补充对在北极繁殖的矛隼（）的育雏行为和繁殖成功率的影响。我们发现补充喂食对平均育雏率没有影响，但导致雏鸟存活概率增加、雏鸟体重增加，并且雏鸟体重和育雏率的方差减小。这些结果与父母采用累加模型和替代模型的混合方式一致。我们认为食物补充能够在不改变平均育雏率的情况下增加对其他形式亲代抚育（例如巢防御、孵卵）的投入。对平均育雏率未观察到影响，同时后代的存活率和体重增加，这表明亲代努力可能发生了重新分配。这些发现有助于理解矛隼对食物补充的反应，强调未来研究需要探索更广泛的环境背景以及对亲代生存和未来繁殖的潜在长期影响。
