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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
5 pages in length. The writer discusses cobreeding, incest breeding and polygynandry as they relate to the acorn woodpecker. Bibliography lists 8 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: LM1_TLCAcorn.rtf
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characteristics the acorn woodpecker displays is what researchers have termed polygynandry, a "rare mating system" (Koenig et al, 2002, p. 151) where father/son or brothers compete together in the mating
ritual, while cobreeder females (typically mother/daughter or sisters) "lay their eggs communally in the same next cavity" (p. 151). Koenig et al (2002), who discuss the importance of this
behavior from a ecosocial point of view, cite advantages of group living found in acorn woodpecker populations as being more beneficial for males because of "higher survival rates" (p. 152)
when compared with their female counterparts, as well as there being greater constraints upon independent breeding "based on the lower proportion of males that achieve independent breeding positions" (p. 152).
These findings indicate how breeding occurrence and frequency is governed more directly by dominant males over dominant females "before subordinates will leave" (Koenig et al, 2002, p. 152), signifying
a more prominent skew with regard to cobreeder males over and above joint-nesting females. Even with these and other promising findings, the authors recognize the potential difficulties in securing
definitive results when coupling vertebrates and the reproductive skew theory. "The biggest problem may stem from a fundamental difference between insect societies (a large proportion of which are unisexual
and composed entirely of females except for a short period when male reproductives are produced) and vertebrate societies (which involve both males and females in what are often complex social
interrelationships). In the absence of the potential complications of incest or mate choice in settled colonies, its not surprising that the limited number of factors considered by optimal skew
theory enjoy considerable success at explaining patterns of reproductive partitioning among social insects" (Koenig et al, 2002, p. 153). In Patterns of Reproductive Skew in the Polygynardrous Acorn Woodpecker,
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