Journal article
Using an electronic monitoring system to link offspring provisioning and foraging behavior of a wild passerine
MM Mariette, EC Pariser, AJ Gilby, MJL Magrath, SR Pryke, SC Griffith
Auk | Published : 2011
Abstract
-Although the costs of parental care are at the foundations of optimal-parental-investment theory, our understanding of the nature of the underlying costs is limited by the difficulty of measuring variation in foraging effort. We simultaneously measured parental provisioning and foraging behavior in a free-living population of Zebra Finches (Taeniopygia guttata) using an electronic monitoring system. We fitted 145 adults with a passive transponder tag and remotely recorded their visits to nest boxes and feeders continuously over a 2-month period. After validating the accuracy of this monitoring system, we studied how provisioning and foraging activities varied through time (day and breeding ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to G. Davies, M. Mainwaring, H. Stone, and I. Stirnemann for helping collect the field data. M.M.M. thanks R. Merrill for insightful discussions that inspired parts of this project. We thank D. Croft and the Dowling family for hospitality and logistical support at Fowlers Gap Research station. We are very grateful to N. Boogert, R. D. Dawson, M. Murphy and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. S.C.G., S.R.P. and M.J.L.M. were supported by separate Discovery Project grants from the Australian Research Council, A.J.G. and M.M.M. by Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarships, and E.C.P. by a Natural Environment Research Council studentship. This work was approved by Macquarie University Animal Ethics Committee (approval 2008/038) and under license from the ABBBS and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.