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Environmental‐ and Parental Condition‐related Variation in Sex Ratio of Kestrel Broods by Erkki Korpimäki; Celia A. May; David T. Parkin; Jon H. Wetton; Jürgen Wiehn is a Environmental Science article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Environmental‐ and Parental Condition‐related Variation in Sex Ratio of Kestrel Broods about?

Variation of brood sex ratio was studied in a Finnish population of Eurasian Kestrels __Falco tinnunculus__ breeding in an unpredictably variable environment. From those young that survived until 2–4 weeks of age, blood was collected and their sex determined from polymorphic DNA profiles produced by hybridisation with a human minisatellite probe. The sex ratio was male‐biased during a year of food (vole) scarcity. Furthermore, in broods without mortality, contrasting seasonal trends in sex ratios emerged. In this subsample, the proportion of males increased with later laying date during years of low and moderate food supply, whereas the opposite was true in a year of relatively high food supply. These trends may indicate circumstances that favour the raising of different sex. The proportion of males in the brood was negatively correlated with body condition of both male and female parents, also reflecting an adaptive condition‐dependent sex‐ratio adjustment, or alternatively the inability of the parents to meet the requirements of the more energetically expensive female offspring. We discuss the limitations that unpredictable conditions during brood raising can impose on adaptive s

Who reads Environmental‐ and Parental Condition‐related Variation in Sex Ratio of Kestrel Broods?

Author

Erkki Korpimäki; Celia A. May; David T. Parkin; Jon H. Wetton; Jürgen Wiehn

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (Blackwell Publishing); Blackwell Publishing Inc.; Wiley; JSTOR (ISSN 0908-8857)

Published

2000

Language

EN

Field

Environmental Science (Physical Sciences)