IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/safiwp/01-01-002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Role of Begging and Sibling Competition in Foraging Strategies of Nestlings

Author

Listed:
  • Miguel A. Rodriguez-Girones
  • Magnus Enguist
  • Michael Lachmann

Abstract

In this paper we assume that parents use the signalling intensity of their young to determine how much food they bring to the nest, and that the pattern of food allocation is determined by the signalling intensity and by the intensity of other non-signalling behaviours that are not preceived by the parents and have no effect on total food provisioning. We explore the consequences of assuming different ways in which signalling and non-signalling behaviours, as well as competitive asymmetries, might interact to determine food allocation. In Model 0 only signalling affects food allocation. For the same level of need, larger (more competitive) chicks beg less and obtain a greater share of the food than their smaller sibs. In Model 1, food allocation is determined by a linear combination of the signalling and the non-signalling behaviours. When non-signalling behaviours are the main determinant of food allocation, chicks don't signal and parents bring a fixed amount of food to the nest. Larger chicks receive a greater share of this food. When both types of behaviour are equally weighted, the pattern of investment depends on competitive asymmetry. For low asymmetry levels, both chicks invest in signalling. For large asymmetries, the less competitive chick invests in signalling and the more competitive chick invests in non-signalling behaviours. In Model 2, food allocation is determined by the product of the signalling and non-signalling intensities. Larger chicks invest more in signalling and less in non-signalling behaviours. Larger chicks get more food than their siblings. A comparison of the different models shows that the chicks waste more resources when signalling evolves. Hence, if natural selection could act on the mechanism of food distribution, we would expect signalling to play a minor role in the actual pattern of allocation of resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Miguel A. Rodriguez-Girones & Magnus Enguist & Michael Lachmann, 2001. "The Role of Begging and Sibling Competition in Foraging Strategies of Nestlings," Working Papers 01-01-002, Santa Fe Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:wop:safiwp:01-01-002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. M. Kilner & D. G. Noble & N. B. Davies, 1999. "Signals of need in parent–offspring communication and their exploitation by the common cuckoo," Nature, Nature, vol. 397(6721), pages 667-672, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Parejo-Pulido & Lorenzo Pérez-Rodríguez & Inmaculada Abril-Colón & Jaime Potti & Tomás Redondo, 2023. "Passive and active parental food allocation in a songbird," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 34(5), pages 729-740.
    2. Lotem, Arnon & Biran-Yoeli, Inbar, 2014. "Evolution of learning and levels of selection: A lesson from avian parent–offspring communication," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 58-74.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ariane Mutzel & Anne-Lise Olsen & Kimberley J Mathot & Yimen G Araya-Ajoy & Marion Nicolaus & Jan J Wijmenga & Jonathan Wright & Bart Kempenaers & Niels J Dingemanse, 2019. "Effects of manipulated levels of predation threat on parental provisioning and nestling begging," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 30(4), pages 1123-1135.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wop:safiwp:01-01-002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/epstfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.