EXTRA-PAIR PATERNITY IN BIRDS: Causes, Correlates, and Conflict

Extra-pair paternity (EPP) is extremely variable among species of birds, both in its frequency and in the behavioral events that produce it. A flood of field studies and comparative analyses has stimulated an array of novel ideas, but the results are limited in several ways. The prevailing view is t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of ecology, evolution, and systematics evolution, and systematics, 2003-01, Vol.34 (1), p.365-396
Main Authors: Westneat, David F, Stewart, Ian R.K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal behavior
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Autoecology
Aves
Biological and medical sciences
Birds
comparative approach
Evolution
extra-pair copulation
Female animals
Fertilization
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
game theory
Male animals
Mating behavior
Phenotypic traits
reproductive strategy
selection theory
sexual selection
Spermatozoa
Swallows
Vertebrata
Warblers
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Summary:Extra-pair paternity (EPP) is extremely variable among species of birds, both in its frequency and in the behavioral events that produce it. A flood of field studies and comparative analyses has stimulated an array of novel ideas, but the results are limited in several ways. The prevailing view is that EPP is largely the product of a female strategy. We evaluate what is known about the behavioral events leading to EPP and find the justification for this view to be weak. Conflict theory (derived from selection theory) predicts that adaptations in all the players involved will influence the outcome of mating interactions, producing complex and often highly variable patterns of behavior and levels of EPP. Data support some of these predictions, but alternative hypotheses abound. Tests of predictions from conflict theory will require better information on how males and females encounter one another, behave once they have met, and influence fertilization once insemination has occurred.
ISSN:1543-592X
1545-2069
DOI:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132439