2003/11/01 by David F. Westneat, Ian Stewart · 5 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Animal Behavior and Reproduction #Plant and animal studies #Avian ecology and behavior
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132439
openalex publication_date 2003/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
▪ Abstract Extra-pair paternity (EPP) is extremely variable among species of birds, both in its frequency and in the behavioral events that produce it. A flood of field studies and comparative analyses has stimulated an array of novel ideas, but the results are limited in several ways. The prevailing view is that EPP is largely the product of a female strategy. We evaluate what is known about the behavioral events leading to EPP and find the justification for this view to be weak. Conflict theory (derived from selection theory) predicts that adaptations in all the players involved will influence the outcome of mating interactions, producing complex and often highly variable patterns of behavior and levels of EPP. Data support some of these predictions, but alternative hypotheses abound. Tests of predictions from conflict theory will require better information on how males and females encounter one another, behave once they have met, and influence fertilization once insemination has occurred.