Meeting Abstract
The quality and quantity of parental care can be highly variable among individuals of the same species. Several factors can influence this variation, including local food availability, body condition, and other environmental “stressors”. We studied the effect of food availability on parental care by providing live mealworms to either male or female Florida Scrub-Jays via automated feeders (SmartFeeders) controlled by radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. Nest attendance and parental feeding rates were measured using high-definition cameras at supplemented and control nests (when nestlings were 3-5 days post-hatch). During years of male-only supplementation, supplementation had no effect on female or male parental behaviors. However, when females were selectively supplemented, female nest attendance increased, while male parental behavior was unchanged. Further, baseline CORT levels taken in the pre-breeding season (1-2 months before nesting) had no relationship to male feeding rates but females with higher levels of pre-breeding baseline CORT spent less time on the nest than those individuals with lower CORT levels. Supplementing males did not change the relationship between pre-breeding baseline CORT and nest attendance in females; however, this relationship was eliminated in supplemented females. These results suggest that the factors influencing baseline CORT in the pre-breeding season, and high food availability during nesting, affect only female parental behavior. Together this suggests that female parental behavior is more “flexible” and responsive to environmental factors and male parental behavior is more “fixed.”
