The Effect of Male Incubation Feeding, Food and Temperature on the Incubation Behaviour of New Zealand Robins


Rebecca L. Boulton, Centre for Ornithology, School of Biosciences, Birmingham University, Edgbaston, B15 2TT, UK.


Because of finite resources, organisms face conflict between their own self-care and reproduction. This conflict is especially apparent in avian species with female-only incubation, where females face a trade-off between time allocated to their own self-maintenance and the thermal requirements of developing embryos. We recorded incubation behaviour of the New Zealand robin (Petroica longipes), a species with female-only incubation, male incubation feeding and high nest predation rates. We examined how male incubation feeding, ambient temperature and food availability (invertebrate biomass) affected the different components of females’ incubation behaviour and whether incubation behaviour explained variation in nest survival. Our results suggest that male incubation feeding rates of 2.8 per hour affect the female’s incubation rhythm by reducing both on- and off-bout duration, resulting in no effect on female nest attentiveness, thus no support for the female-nutritional hypothesis. The incubation behaviours that we measured did not explain nest survival, despite high nest predation rates. Increased ambient temperature caused an increase in off-bout duration, whereas increased food availability increased on-bout duration. While males play a vital role in influencing incubation behaviour, female robins attempt to resolve the trade-off between their own foraging needs and the thermal requirements of their developing embryos via alternating their incubation rhythm in relation to both food and temperature.