Extra-pair paternity is not driven by inbreeding avoidance and does not affect provisioning rates in a cooperatively breeding bird, the noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala)

Abstract

In many socially monogamous bird species, both sexes regularly engage in mating outside their pair bond. Although the benefits of extra-pair (EP) mating behavior are clear and well established for males, such as an increase in the number of sired offspring, the benefits of EP mating behavior to females are less clear. A dominant theory for the incidence of EP mating is that socially monogamous females can improve the genetic quality of their offspring and avoid the costs of inbreeding through EP mating. In addition, in cooperatively breeding species, the theory of “parental care” predicts that females obtain additional help for their offspring through EP matings. Here, we examined evidence for both the inbreeding avoidance and parental care hypotheses in the cooperatively breeding noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala). Overall, EP mating occurred in 27% of broods, with 14% of offspring sired by males other than the identified pair-bonded male. There was a strong tendency to avoid pairing with genetically related individuals, with 86% of breeding pairs being significantly less related to each other than the general population. The occurrence of EP paternity was independent of the degree of relatedness between the pair. Provisioning patterns in relation to EP mating was not consistent with the “parental care” hypothesis and EP males did not contribute to the care of broods. These results demonstrate that in this system, there is no evidence that EP mating might function as a mechanism to reduce the costs of inbreeding depression or to gain benefits of extra helpers.