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Parasitic common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) females lay preferentially in safe neighbourhoods

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Abstract

Nest predation has been suggested as an explanation of the adaptive significance and evolution of conspecific brood parasitism, an alternative reproductive tactic pursued by females in several animal taxa. I used new nest boxes that contained only decoy eggs and were erected on lakes differing in real nest predation risk to test this hypothesis in the common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula), a hole-nesting duck. I used broken eggs to simulate predation risk of the boxes to determine if parasites having no previous experience with the boxes discriminate between seemingly safe and risky nest sites. Parasites laid eggs in the experimental boxes independently of the simulated predation risk, suggesting that they do not use broken eggs or nest disarray as indicators of predation intensity. Parasites preferred experimental boxes on lakes where real nest predation risk was low, supporting the nest predation risk hypothesis. Assuming that females in high risk areas have had experience of nest predation, they may take this into account in selecting host nests.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Malte Andersson for discussions about brood parasitism in goldeneyes, Mauri Pesonen for writing the bootstrapping program and Markku Milonoff, Vesa Ruusila, John Eadie and an anonymous referee for comments on the manuscript.

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  1. Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, Joensuu Game and Fisheries Research, Kauppakatu 18-20, 80100, Joensuu, Finland

    Hannu Pöysä

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  1. Hannu Pöysä
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Correspondence to Hannu Pöysä.

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Communicated by J. Dickinson

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Pöysä, H. Parasitic common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) females lay preferentially in safe neighbourhoods. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 54, 30–35 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-003-0596-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-003-0596-1

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