Year: 1980
Type: article
Abstract: SARAH LENINGTON Parental care (here defined as investment made by adults in their young after hatching) occurs in all birds except the Megapodidae.It is to be expected that the amount and proportion of time and energy devoted to parental care will profoundly affect reproductive success.Furthermore, the strategy of parental care (whether young are tended by male, or female, or both) will have far reaching effects on the mating system (Lack 1968, Orians 1969).Participation of both sexes in parental care is widespread among birds and easily understood when the young are fed by their parents (Lack 1968).However, in several monogamous anatids, charadriids, scolopacids and recurvirostrids in which both adults tend precocial, independently foraging young, participation of both sexes in parental care is problematic (Selander 1972).This paper discusses parental behavior of the monogamous Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), in which broods may be tended by either 1 or 2 adults.To assess advantages of bi-parental care for a species with precocial young, I contrast time budgets for adult behavior with both parents and only 1 adult tending the brood and suggest hypotheses for strategies of parental care in this species.Killdeer arrive in mid-March at my study area in St. Paul, Minnesota.Males often return to a previously occupied territory and in some instances retain the same mate (Lenington and Mace 1975).Courtship activities and pair formation begin immediately after arrival.Bunni (1959) did the only detailed study of Killdeer breeding biology.He reported a clutch-size of 4 and an incubation period of 24-26 days.Males and females participate equally in incubation.Occasionally Killdeer are double-brooded, with eggs for second nestings laid before the first brood has fledged.The young, never fed by their parents, fledge at about 31 days.If a clutch is destroyed, Killdeer may nest up to 3 times.METHODS This study was done in the 1972 breeding season on 150 acres on, and adjacent to, the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, where suitable Killdeer habitat was broken up by busy streets and large complexes of buildings (Fig. 1).Killdeer nested on areas with low or sparse vegetation and foraged regularly on lawns, the margins of ponds and the edges of a drainage ditch.I watched 8 broods and 13 attendant adults.Five broods were tended by both adults and 3 by 1 adult.Eight adults, including at least 1 from each pair, were trapped and banded with 8
Author: Sarah Lenington
Language: English
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2188986784