Avian Mating Systems

Mating systems and parental behaviour are among the most diverse of social behaviours, and recent work suggest that they can be influenced by the social environment. Small plovers (Charadrius spp.) exhibit diverse mating systems, ranging from monogamy to polygyny. Consequently, Oliver Krueger, Tamás Székely and I are studying populations of three species in Magagascar, using a combination of molecular genetic and demographic modeling approaches to test whether breeding systems are influenced by the social environment.