Reproductive asynchrony within social groups of female eastern wild turkeys

Abstract

Coordination in timing of reproduction is driven by multiple ecological and sociobiological processes for a wide array of species. Eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) use a male dominance polygynous mating system, where males communicate with females via elaborate courtship displays and vocalizations at display sites. Most females prefer to mate with dominant males; therefore, asynchronous breeding and nesting may occur which can disproportionately influence individual fitness within breeding groups. For female wild turkeys, there are reproductive advantages associated with earlier nesting. As such, we evaluated reproductive asynchrony within and between groups of GPS-tagged female eastern wild turkeys based on timing of nest initiation. We examined 30 social groups with an average of seven females per group (range 2-15) during 2014-2019 in west central Louisiana. We found that the estimated number of days between first nest initiation across females within groups varied between 3 and 7 days across years, although we expected 1-2 days to occur between successive nesting attempts of females within groups based on observations of captive wild turkeys in the extant literature. The number of days between successive nest attempts across females within groups was lower for successful than failed attempts, and nests with an average of 2.8 days between initiation of another nest were more likely to hatch. Our findings suggest that asynchronous reproduction may influence reproductive success in female wild turkeys.

Keywords: Meleagris gallopavo; asynchronous; breeding; dominance; nesting; social hierarchies; wild turkey.