Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 10:02:41 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "rick@blazie.net" Subject: Re: Interesting chickadee article MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The availability of DNA fingerprinting techniques in recent years has revealed that this is the rule rather than the exception in the majority of animal mating systems. EPCs (Extra Pair Copulations) are frequent in many birds. They are almost always initiated by the female and are almost exclusively with males that have higher social standing than their mates. Females rarely initiate contact with or respond to overtures from males of lower standing. In the case of chickadees there was a study a year or two ago about Black-cappeds that showed that females select the nest site within the territory and that it is almost always immediately adjacent to the boundary of a territory occupied by a higher ranked male and that from 25-75% of the eggs she lays are fertilized by a male other than the one she is paired to. Nest placement apprently facilitates those contacts and there is nothing her mate can do about it. All this has struck humans as odd because we have long assumed that social monogamy (male and female on a territory) meant sexual monogamy and it is now clear that it does not for most species. Rick Eirik A.T. Blom 4318 Cowan Place Belcamp, Md 21017 410-575-6086 rick@blazie.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kerry Stone" To: Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 11:29 AM Subject: [MDOSPREY] Interesting chickadee article > Hi all, > > In the May 3rd issue of Science a very interesting article on > Chickadees is coming out. The article claims that the female chickadee is unfaithful two-timer. Apparently, she listens to all the male chickadee songs, picks her favorite, and if her favorite song happens to be coming from a bird that's not her mate - she sneaks out and meets the great singer for a littel tete-a-tete and sneaks back home. > > Funny!!! > > Kerry Stone > Takoma Park, MD > Montgomery County > > > > Science May 3 2002: 807 [Full Text] > > Brevia > > Female Eavesdropping on Male Song Contests in Songbirds > Daniel J. Mennill, Laurene M. Ratcliffe, and Peter T. > Boag Science May 3 2002: 873. [Full Text] > > ====================================================================== > = > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================