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Parental Observation

Satisfactory Essays

Hypothesis: Is male paternal care influenced by egg color?
- The blue-green egg colors of birds could be a signal, that is sexually selected of female quality, that males use to make decision about parental investment.

Subjects: American robin Turdus migratorius What was done?: Natural robin clutches were replaced with four artificial eggs. The artificial eggs were either all vivid or pale in coloration, keeping close to the extremes of natural coloration of eggs. Three unrelated nestlings were introduced into each experimental nest, once the incubation period was up. When the nestlings were 3, 6, and 9 days old, the parental provisioning behavior was monitored.

Results: It was found that at 3 days old, nestlings had a higher male

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