DOI: 10.20350/digitalcsic/12493
title: Parental care [dataset]
title: Melanism influences the use of social information in a polymorphic owl. Parental care [dataset]

description: Social information use has well-known fitness benefits. However, causes underlying the apparent inter-individual variability in the propensity to use social information are poorly studied. Melanins are pigments responsible for most of intra-specific color variation in vertebrates and their variation is often associated with changes in behaviour. Here, we explored whether melanism is related to individual propensity to use social information in the color polymorphic scops owl Otus scops. We manipulated social information on predation risk at nests by broadcasting calls of the sympatric little owl Athene noctua and found that owlets of brownish females exposed to alarm calls had lower levels of natural antibodies than those of greyish females. In parallel, we found changes in parental behaviour contingent on coloration because when exposed to the risky treatment brownish females returned earlier to nests than greyish females and owlets raised by brownish females were fed with smaller prey than those raised by greyish ones. These results provide support for a previous ignored role of melanins on the propensity to use social information, which may help to explain the maintenance of melanin-based color polymorphisms wherever social environments are variable.
description: Nest_ID Nest identification Treatment Experimental treatment applied to each nest Year Year of study Laying date Laying date of the first egg within each nest Pre-treatment recording time Recording time before the application of the treatment to calculate provisioning rate During-treatment recording time Recording time during the application of the treatment to calculate provisioning rate Pre-treatment male latency Time elapsed from the onset of filming before treatment until the male returned to its normal activities During-treatment male latency Time elapsed from the onset of filming during treatment until the male returned to its normal activities Change in male latency Difference in male latency between during- and pre-treatment periods Pre-treatment female latency Time elapsed from the onset of filming before treatment until the female returned to its normal activities During-treatment female latency Time elapsed from the onset of filming during treatment until the female returned to its normal activities Change in female latency Difference in female latency between during- and pre-treatment periods Pre-treatment female provisioning rate Female provisioning rate during the pre-treatment period During-treatment female provisioning rate Female provisioning rate during the treatment Change in female provisioning rate Difference in female provisioning rate between during- and pre-treatment periods Pre-treatment male provisioning rate Male provisioning rate during the pre-treatment period During-treatment male provisioning rate Male provisioning rate during the treatment Change in male provisioning rate Difference in male provisioning rate between during- and pre-treatment periods Pre-treatment prey size Size of the provisioned prey (separated by commas) during the pre-treatment period Pre-treatment mean prey size Mean size of all the provisioned prey during the pre-treatment period During-treatment prey size Size of the provisioned prey (separated by commas) during treatment During-treatment mean prey size Mean size of all the provisioned prey during the treatment Change in prey size Difference in mean prey size between during- and pre-treatment periods Female_ID Female identification Female_color Female color as brownish (1) versus greyish (0) Male_ID Male identification Male_color Male color as brownish (1) versus greyish (0)