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closePaper’s general implications
Posted by zebra77 on 23 Jun 2008 at 14:36 GMT
Hi Keith,
It’s a very interesting paper. I would be curious to know your responses to my comments :)
Joanna
The study is presented in the context of the field of hatching asynchrony and the reference to ‘altricial bird’ in the title seems to promise that the conclusions of the paper will have broader impact.
Several atricial species seem to adopt brood reduction or brood survival strategy by differential incubation patterns and by varying egg size (or mass) with the laying sequence. Because of that, it would be interesting to consider whether the described trade-off is also relevant for species in which egg size decreases or increases with the laying sequence.
RE: Paper’s general implications
kwsockman replied to zebra77 on 04 Jul 2008 at 21:50 GMT
I agree. It would be interesting to look at this phenomenon in more species, especially those in which egg size changes with laying sequence. However, it is difficult to know if one has fully accounted for maternal investment with egg size as the only measure. For example, a decreasing egg size might be counteracted by increasing carotenoid deposition or some other form of maternal investment. So, it will be important in the future to look at numerous measures of maternal investment.
Thank you again for your comments.