Topic
Acrocephalus
About: Acrocephalus is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 768 publications have been published within this topic receiving 22889 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
TL;DR: Habitat saturation and territory quality are both involved in the evolution of cooperative breeding, and the results support the 'benefits of philopatry,5,6 hypothesis, which emphasizes the lifetime inclusive fitness benefits from staying at home.
Abstract: COOPERATIVE breeding, which often involves young remaining on their natal territory and helping their parents to raise subsequent broods1–3 is mostly explained by habitat saturation: young are constrained from becoming independent breeders by a shortage of breeding territories2,4. Here I present two lines of evidence against this hypothesis for the cooperatively breeding Seychelles warbler Acrocephalus sechellensis. first, territory quality has a significant effect on dispersal: vacancies arising on territories are mostly filled by prebreeding birds from territories of the same or lower quality. Second, individuals that delay reproduction in high-quality territories, but which eventually breed there, have greater lifetime fitness than those that disperse at one year of age and breed immediately in lower-quality territories. These results support the 'benefits of philopatry,5,6 hypothesis, which emphasizes the lifetime inclusive fitness benefits from staying at home. The transfers of warblers to unoccupied islands was the strictest experimental test of this hypothesis. At first there was no cooperative breeding, but as all high-quality areas became occupied, young birds born on high-quality territories began to stay as helpers, rather than occupying breeding vacancies on low-quality territories. Therefore habitat saturation and territory quality are both involved in the evolution of cooperative breeding.
508 citations
TL;DR: Parentage analyses showed that subordinate ‘helper’ females as well as the dominant ‘primary” females laid eggs in communal nests, indicating that the Seychelles warbler has an intermediate level of female reproductive skew, in between the alternative extremes of helper‐at‐the‐nest and joint nesting systems.
Abstract: We describe the development and initial application of a semiautomated parentage testing system in the Seychelles warbler ( Acrocephalus sechellensis ). This system used fluorescently labelled primers for 14 polymorphic microsatellite loci in two multiplex loading groups to genotype efficiently over 96% of the warbler population on Cousin island. When used in conjunction with the program cervus , this system provided sufficient power to assign maternity and paternity within the Seychelles warbler, despite the complications associated with its cooperative breeding system and a relatively low level of genetic variation. Parentage analyses showed that subordinate ‘helper’ females as well as the dominant ‘primary’ females laid eggs in communal nests, indicating that the Seychelles warbler has an intermediate level of female reproductive skew, in between the alternative extremes of helper-at-the-nest and joint nesting systems. Forty-four per cent of helpers bred successfully, accounting for 15% of all offspring. Forty per cent of young resulted from extra-group paternity.
444 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that female subordinates frequently gained parentage and that this, combined with high levels of extra group paternity, resulted in low levels of relatedness between subordinates and non descendent offspring within a territory.
Abstract: Inclusive fitness benefits have been suggested to be a major selective force behind the evolution of co- operative breeding. We investigated the fitness benefits selecting for cooperative breeding in the Seychelles warbler, Acrocephalus sechellensis. A microsatellite-based genotyping method was used to determine the relatedness of sub- ordinates to group offspring in an isolated population of Seychelles warblers. The indirect and direct breeding benefits accruing to individual subordinates were then calculated for every successful breeding event over a three-year period. We show that female subordinates frequently gained parentage and that this, combined with high levels of extragroup paternity, resulted in low levels of relatedness between subordinates and nondescendent offspring within a territory. Direct breeding benefits were found to be significantly higher than indirect kin benefits for both female and male subordinates. As predicted, female subordinates gained significantly more direct breeding opportunities and therefore higher inclusive fitness benefits by being a subordinate within a group than did males. This may explain why most subordinates in the Seychelles warbler are female.
197 citations
TL;DR: Great reed warblers Acrocephalus arundinaceus in a recently founded and increasing population in Sweden during 15 years for the presence of birds with albinistic feathers fits to the expected pattern if albinism is governed by recessive alleles.
Abstract: Albinism in birds is thought to result from the expression of recessive alleles that disrupt melanin pigmentation at feather development. We have studied great reed warblers Acrocephalus arundinaceus in a recently founded and increasing population in Sweden during 15 years for the presence of birds with albinistic feathers. The study population was founded in 1978 and the few cases of albinism was exclusively recorded during the first five pears of our study (1985-1989). This fits to the expected pattern if albinism is governed by recessive alleles; we have previously demonstrated that the population suffered from inbreeding during the first years of our study. The albinistic birds experienced a similar lifetime reproductive success as normally coloured birds. (Less)
186 citations
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Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 13 |
| 2024 | 22 |
| 2023 | 25 |
| 2022 | 43 |
| 2021 | 14 |
| 2020 | 23 |