Cuckoldry and lack of parentage-dependent paternal care in yellow warblers:a cost-benefit approach

Theory suggests that a male strategy of reducing parental care in response to reducedparentage should evolve only under certain conditions. Expected paternity in subsequent matings ispredicted to be primary in effect, because it determines whether there is a future benefit to compensatemales for the cost of reduced care. This study, tested whether provisioning of nestlings by sociallymonogamous male yellow warblers, Dendroica petechia, varied with the males’ parentage in the broodand how males’ paternity varied in subsequent matings. Analysis included observations of parental carefrom 40 nests (31 of which had paternity determined by multi-locus DNA fingerprinting) and paternityresults from 130 families over 3 years.

STEPHEN M. YEZERINAC, PATRICK J. WEATHERHEAD & PETER T. BOAG, Anim. Behav., 1996, 52, 821-832