Year- and sex-dependent effects of experimental brood sex ratio manipulation on fledging condition of Eurasian kestrels

Summary 1 Offspring sex ratio may be an unpredictable component of life history that might select for behavioural plasticity in parental care. If the parents do not have such plasticity and the two sexes of offspring differ in size, individuals in a brood or litter biased towards the larger sex offspring may suffer from food shortage. Sibling sex ratio could also affect the young through asymmetric sex-related sibling competition. 2 We created single-sex broods of sexually size-dimorphic Eurasian kestrels (Falco tinnunculus L.) with mixed-sex control broods in order to test whether parents have behavioural plasticity to respond to the sex ratio of their brood and whether smaller male chicks suffer from reduced health status because their larger female siblings outrival them in sibling competition. The experiment was conducted during two years (2000 and 2001) that differed in the abundance of voles, the main natural prey of kestrels. 3 No obvious effects of the brood sex ratio manipulation on parental effort were detected, as there were no differences in prey delivery rate, biomass of prey brought to the nest, body mass or heterophile/lymphocyte ratio of the parents. 4 Female chicks in all-female broods had lower haematocrit levels than those in mixed-sex broods in a year of low vole abundance. As haematocrit is an index of nutritional condition and health state, this result indicates that in the year of low vole abundance the female chicks in all-female broods fledged in poorer condition than those in mixed-sex broods. 5 These results indicate that when the parents do not alter their level of parental effort in response to the sex ratio of their brood, the young in a brood biased towards the larger sex offspring can be reared successfully when food is abundant, while they may suffer under food shortage situations. 6 Kestrel chicks of both sexes had low haematocrit levels and T cell-mediated immune responses in the year of low vole abundance. This result indicates that poor health state at fledging may provide a causal link for low recruitment of kestrels hatched in years of low vole abundance.