Search
Presentation Details
| Chitty Chitty Duck Duck – From behavioral dynamics to population dynamics and back in a precocial bird. |
| John Eadie1, Bruce Lyon2, Eli Bridge3, Thomas Moore1, Elena Berg1, Nicole Odell4, Emilie Graves1, Cara Thow2, Tez Stair1, Mitch Hinton1, Melissa Jones1, Caitlin Wells5, Ami Olson1, Katharine Cook1, David Scheck1, Tenaya Russell1. 1University of Califonrnia Davis, Davis, California, United States; 2University of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, United States; 3University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, United States; 4American University, Paris, Colorado, France; 5Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States |
Despite decades of interest dating back to the Chitty hypothesis and earlier, there are surprisingly few studies that demonstrate direct links between behavioral dynamics and population dynamics, particularly when populations fluctuate or cycle. We studied population density, reproductive success, and frequency of reproductive tactics of a precocial bird, the Wood Duck (Aix sponsa), at 6 sites for 15-26 years near Davis CA.��We monitored > 2500 nests, tracked reproductive success of 2100 females, recorded nest use and success at 197 nest sites with RFID readers, and genotyped >1000 females and >5000 ducklings using 19 microsatellites to assess the frequency of alternative reproductive tactics. We present evidence showing that social interactions among females – specifically conspecific brood parasitism – drive population variability, leading to unstable fluctuations or crashes. Simultaneously we show that variation in population density results in different payoffs for female reproductive tactics. Our results demonstrate that behavioral dynamics can drive populations dynamics, and reciprocally, fluctuating population dynamics can maintain divergent behavioral phenotypes. |