Dataset Information

Diet quality and resource allocation in the zebra finch.

ABSTRACT: We investigated the effect of diet quality on resource allocation in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) by providing females with a high-quality (HQ) or low-quality (LQ) diet for six weeks prior to pairing, and continuing these diets during egg laying and chick rearing. Diet treatments were then reversed and the experiment repeated. When females laid on the HQ diet, egg mass increased with laying order, but the reverse was true on the LQ diet. Females laid significantly more male eggs on the LQ diet compared with on the HQ diet. In addition, female eggs were more frequent at the end of the clutch when on the HQ diet and at the beginning of the clutch when on the LQ diet. These differences in the primary sex ratio are in line with predictions from sex allocation theory, since in this species females are more vulnerable to nutritional stress than males.

SUBMITTER: Rutstein AN

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1810080 | biostudies-other | 2004 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Diet quality and resource allocation in the zebra finch.

Rutstein A N AN Slater P J B PJ Graves J A JA

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20040801

We investigated the effect of diet quality on resource allocation in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) by providing females with a high-quality (HQ) or low-quality (LQ) diet for six weeks prior to pairing, and continuing these diets during egg laying and chick rearing. Diet treatments were then reversed and the experiment repeated. When females laid on the HQ diet, egg mass increased with laying order, but the reverse was true on the LQ diet. Females laid significantly more male eggs on the LQ ...[more]

PMID: 15503996

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundThe dominant paradigm for modeling the complexities of interacting populations and food webs is a system of coupled ordinary differential equations in which the state of each species, population, or functional trophic group is represented by an aggregated numbers-density or biomass-density variable. Here, using the metaphysiological approach to model consumer-resource interactions, we formulate a two-state paradigm that represents each population or group in a food web in terms of both its quantity and quality.Methodology and principal findingsThe formulation includes an allocation function controlling the relative proportion of extracted resources to increasing quantity versus elevating quality. Since lower quality individuals senescence more rapidly than higher quality individuals, an optimal allocation proportion exists and we derive an expression for how this proportion depends on population parameters that determine the senescence rate, the per-capita mortality rate, and the effects of these rates on the dynamics of the quality variable. We demonstrate that oscillations do not arise in our model from quantity-quality interactions alone, but require consumer-resource interactions across trophic levels that can be stabilized through judicious resource allocation strategies. Analysis and simulations provide compelling arguments for the necessity of populations to evolve quality-related dynamics in the form of maternal effects, storage or other appropriate structures. They also indicate that resource allocation switching between investments in abundance versus quality provide a powerful mechanism for promoting the stability of consumer-resource interactions in seasonally forcing environments.Conclusions/significanceOur simulations show that physiological inefficiencies associated with this switching can be favored by selection due to the diminished exposure of inefficient consumers to strong oscillations associated with the well-known paradox of enrichment. Also our results demonstrate how allocation switching can explain observed growth patterns in experimental microbial cultures and discuss how our formulation can address questions that cannot be answered using the quantity-only paradigms that currently predominate.

Dataset Information

Diet quality and resource allocation in the zebra finch.

Publications

Diet quality and resource allocation in the zebra finch.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets