Effects of nestling begging behavior on parental food provisioning in the Mountain White-crowned Sparrow
Abstract
Nestlings have evolved to communicate their status of need through visual and vocal begging displays. These behaviors allow nestlings to obtain resources, aiding in their chance of reproductive success. I predicted that increased intensity of nestling begging behavior would lead to increased rates of parental food provisioning. This was tested by monitoring Mountain White- crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha) nests with cameras to collect both nestling and parent behavioral data. Linear regression analyses showed a significant but weak positive correlation between both the average gape and feeding frequency (R2= 0.06021, F-statistic = 3.075, p-value= 0.08587) and between average height and feeding frequency (R2= 0.05924, F= 3.023, p-value =0.08851). Since there is variation among clutch size, a regression analysis of average feeding frequency in relation to the clutch size displayed a significant and strong negative correlation (R2= 0.1099, F-statistic= 5.927, p-value= 0.08851). To obtain more accurate results, two more separate linear regressions were conducted with a constant clutch size of three nestling showing a strong positive correlation between the average gape (R2= 0.3457, F-statistic =11.62, p-value =0.002516) and average height (R2= 0.3997, F-statistic = 14.65, p-value = 0.0009178) in relation to the feeding frequency. **Rayleigh test results**
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