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Cross-seasonal interactions in the evolution of sandpiper social systems

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Summary

  1. 1.

    Evolutionary interpretations of breeding social systems normally focus on ecological factors operating within the breeding season. Yet for most temperate zone and arctic species, this season occupies only a small period within the annual cycle. The migration distances and breeding and wintering distributions of the calidridine sandpipers (Scolopacidae, Calidridinae) were analyzed in relation to their patterns of parental care and mating to test for the importance of cross-seasonal interactions in the evolution of breeding social systems. These species breed in the arctic and migrate to wintering grounds throughout the northern and southern temperate zones and tropics.

  2. 2.

    Two gradients can be identified in sandpiper breeding systems. First, with respect to parental care, they can be ranked from those with biparental care in which both adults remain with the young until fledging to cases of single-parent care where one adult plays no parental role beyond fertilization. Second, in mating systems, they range from strictly monogamous species to promiscuous, i.e., a gradient with increasing probability of reproduction with more than one member of the opposite sex during a given season.

  3. 3.

    These gradients in parental care and mating systems correlate with migration distance. Species in which one adult departs early and species deviating from monogamy are more likely to migrate farther. More promiscuous species also tend to breed farther north. Migration distance and wintering distribution are so tightly correlated that they cannot be separated.

  4. 4.

    These patterns are consistent with a hypothesis that through early departure an individual can decrease the risks of long-distance migration. Thus cross-seasonal effects may interact with intraseasonal parameters such as food and predation to determine the form of calidridine breeding social systems.

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  1. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, 94720, Berkeley, California, USA

    J. P. Myers

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Myers, J.P. Cross-seasonal interactions in the evolution of sandpiper social systems. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 8, 195–202 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00299830

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