A female pied flycatcher can't feed herself sufficiently while she incubates her eggs and newly-hatched chicks. Photo by Alejandro Cantarero. |
We are not the only species that nags, although in other species these vocalizations are often called “begging signals”. Begging signals are commonly heard in bird species in which the female does most or all of the egg and chick incubation. Because these females cannot sufficiently feed themselves while ensuring the survival of their brood, their male partners need to spend extra time foraging for the females in addition to foraging for the chicks and themselves. There is an inherent conflict between how mated males would prefer to spend their time (feeding themselves, maintaining their dominance status, and flirting with females) and how their female partners want them to spend their time (providing as much as possible for the family). The male response to this conflict is often to see how little he can get away with contributing while he sneaks off to spend his time as he wishes. The female response is to produce loud, juvenile vocalizations and gestures until he brings food to the nest. Is this really necessary though? Maybe she is just being manipulative to try to get him to do more than he really needs to.
Alejandro Cantarero, Jimena López-Arrabé, Antonio Palma, and Juan Moreno from the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, Spain and Alberto Redondo from the University of Córdoba in Spain set out to test whether the begging signals made by female pied flycatchers were an honest signal of need or were just obnoxious melodrama. They predicted that if the females’ begging calls were an honest reflection of how much help they needed, then begging calls would increase as energy needs increase.
The researchers studied 71 pied flycatcher nests in a forest in central Spain. Behaviors were observed by nest-mounted video cameras five days after the females finished laying their clutches of eggs. Two days later, each female was caught and measured, fitted with an identifying leg band, and had her wings clipped. About half of these females had their primary feathers clipped at the base to impair their ability to fly (these females are called the “handicapped” group). The other half had their primary feathers clipped at the tip so that their ability to fly would not be affected (these are the “control” females). When the females were released, they all returned to their nests. Their behaviors were measured again three days later.
Females in the handicapped group lost weight and begged significantly more after their wings were clipped, whereas the control females did not. This suggests that females are adjusting their begging rates to accurately reflect their needs. Furthermore, male partners of the handicapped females fed their partners more after the wing-clipping, whereas the male partners of the control females did not. This shows that the males are responding to either their partners’ increased begging or increased need or both. Revealingly, the amount that females begged was positively correlated with the amount that the males fed them, even when the researchers statistically controlled for whether their wings were clipped or not. This means that males were feeding females more because they begged more (and not simply because they needed more, which was also true).
This nagging female gets exactly what she needs.
Video by Alejandro Cantarero.
Is someone nagging you too much? If we are like our pied flycatcher friends, than if you meet that person’s needs, the nagging should stop.
Want to know more? Check this out:
Cantarero, A., López-Arrabé, J., Palma, A., Redondo, A., & Moreno, J. (2014). Males respond to female begging signals of need: a handicapping experiment in the pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca Animal Behaviour, 94, 167-173 DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.05.002
Which begs the question does clipping the wings of captive psittacine increase other negative behaviors like screaming?
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