Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
182,549 studies31 sourcesUpdated 57 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Royal Society Open Science

When the going gets tough, the dove gets going: feral pigeons maintain nest attendance rates during food shortages with asymmetrical biparental care

  • Brandon Mak1
  • Mira Julie Chaban1
  • Edward Drewitt2
  • Wolfgang Weisser1
  • Beate Apfelbeck3,4
4 affiliations
  1. 1Terrestrial Ecology Research Group, Department of Life Science Systems, Technical University of Munich 1 , Freising, Germany
  2. 2School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol 2 , Bristol, UK
  3. 3Evolutionary Zoology, Department of Environment and Biodiversity, University of Salzburg 3 , Salzburg, Austria
  4. 4Department of Zoology, National Museums of Kenya 4 , Nairobi, Kenya
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

Reproduction is an important but costly life history stage, and birds may share this cooperatively through biparental care. However, parental efforts are not always shared equally, with many bird species exhibiting asymmetrical biparental care. In feral pigeons (Columba livia) both sexes incubate the eggs, although males (the ‘helper’) do so far less than females (the primary parent). We conducted a supplementary feeding study in food-scarce environments to understand how food availability affects energy constraints and incubation effort in breeding pigeons. We found responses to food availability to differ between sexes. Supplementary feeding was associated with mass gain in incubating females but not males. This suggests primary parents were more energetically constrained than helper parents when incubating eggs. Daily incubation time in females was 6% longer when fed, while this was 5% lower in males. Overall nest attendance (98%) and nest activity remained unchanged regardless of food availability. These suggest that in species with asymmetrical biparental care, helper parents, which invest less time incubating relative to the primary parent, can compensate for reduced nest attention by the latter during food shortages (i.e. longer foraging trips). In doing so, parents cooperatively buffer offspring from acute environmental variability without sacrificing parental care.

Related

  1. A multi‐race blast resistance locus identified and validated in US elite rice via association and biparental mapping
    J. M. Manangkil, B. Angira, E. Oliveira‐Garcia +7
    The plant genomePeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-NDFull textGenetics & genomicsPlant biologyEurope PMC
  2. Genetic weight of a mutant in a biparental Moran model with infinite selection
    Camille Coron, Olivier Hénard
    HALPreprintCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Full textEvolutionary biologyGenetics & genomicsHALarXiv
  3. The Asymmetrical Architecture of Ultradian REM Sleep: Direction, NREM Currency, and a Finite Post-REM Predictive Horizon in Mice
    O. LE BON
    bioRxivPreprintAll rights reservedFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv
  4. An iron compass in the liver: superparamagnetic macrophages give homing pigeons a magnetic sense.
    Yun Liu, Jincheng Fang, Roman Sankowski
    Signal transduction and targeted therapyPeer-reviewedCC BYFull textGeneral biologyGeneral medicineEurope PMCDOAJ
  5. Age and Breed Associated Differences in the Duodenal Microbiota of European Meat Pigeons and Shiqi Pigeons and Their Associations with Growth Traits.
    Liheng Zhang, Leshan Guo, Binglong Lu +10
    Animals : an open access journal from MDPIPeer-reviewedCC BYFull textZoology & animal behaviourEurope PMC

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{mak2026when,
  title = {{When the going gets tough, the dove gets going: feral pigeons maintain nest attendance rates during food shortages with asymmetrical biparental care}},
  author = {Brandon Mak and Mira Julie Chaban and Edward Drewitt and Wolfgang Weisser and Beate Apfelbeck},
  journal = {Royal Society Open Science},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1098/rsos.261123},
  url = {https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/9/261123/483436/When-the-going-gets-tough-the-dove-gets-going},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - When the going gets tough, the dove gets going: feral pigeons maintain nest attendance rates during food shortages with asymmetrical biparental care
AU  - Brandon Mak
AU  - Mira Julie Chaban
AU  - Edward Drewitt
AU  - Wolfgang Weisser
AU  - Beate Apfelbeck
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/30
JO  - Royal Society Open Science
DO  - 10.1098/rsos.261123
UR  - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/9/261123/483436/When-the-going-gets-tough-the-dove-gets-going
AB  - Reproduction is an important but costly life history stage, and birds may share this cooperatively through biparental care. However, parental efforts are not always shared equally, with many bird species exhibiting asymmetrical biparental care. In feral pigeons (Columba livia) both sexes incubate the eggs, although males (the ‘helper’) do so far less than females (the primary parent). We conducted a supplementary feeding study in food-scarce environments to understand how food availability affects energy constraints and incubation effort in breeding pigeons. We found responses to food availability to differ between sexes. Supplementary feeding was associated with mass gain in incubating females but not males. This suggests primary parents were more energetically constrained than helper parents when incubating eggs. Daily incubation time in females was 6% longer when fed, while this was 5% lower in males. Overall nest attendance (98%) and nest activity remained unchanged regardless of food availability. These suggest that in species with asymmetrical biparental care, helper parents, which invest less time incubating relative to the primary parent, can compensate for reduced nest attention by the latter during food shortages (i.e. longer foraging trips). In doing so, parents cooperatively buffer offspring from acute environmental variability without sacrificing parental care.
SN  - 2054-5703
ER  -