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| Reproductive strategies and genetic success in an urban-thriving passerine, the European starling |
| Colleen Barber, Joel Slade, Megan M Wright, Catherine Reeve, Alexandra MC Ouedraogo, Mark AW Hornsby. Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada |
Most passerine species have mixed reproductive strategies that include extra-pair paternity and on rare occasions, conspecific brood parasitism. European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are a socially monogamous but facultatively polygynous urban-thriving and cavity-nesting passerine with biparental care. We established the frequency of reproductive strategies present in our European Starling population, and then examined whether ASY adults were in better body condition and had greater realized reproductive success than SY adults. We also explored whether positive assortative mating occurred based on age. We determined genetic parentage in 61 European Starling broods over four years and documented frequencies of within-pair paternity, extra-pair paternity, and intraspecific brood parasitism. We also discovered the presence of quasi-parasitism (extra-pair maternity) in our population, which has not been previously reported in this species. ASY and SY parents had a similar propensity to engage in each of the four mating strategies. Social and genetic assortative pairing existed between SY and ASY individuals. Other results will be discussed. |