Uniparental offspring desertion occurs in a wide variety of avian taxa and usually reflects sexual conflict over parental care. In many species, desertion yields immediate reproductive benefits for deserters if they can re‐mate and breed again during the same nesting season; in such cases desertion may be selectively advantageous even if it significantly reduces the fitness of the current brood. However, in many other species, parents desert late‐season offspring when opportunities to re‐nest are absent. In these cases, any reproductive benefits of desertion are delayed, and desertion is unlikely to be advantageous unless the deserted parent can compensate for the loss of its partner and minimize costs to the current brood. We tested this parental compensation hypothesis in Hooded Warblers Setophaga citrina, a species in which males regularly desert late‐season nestlings and fledglings during moult. Females from deserted nests effectively doubled their provisioning efforts, and nestlings from deserted nests received just as much food, gained mass at the same rate, and were no more likely to die from either complete nest predation or brood reduction as young from biparental nests. The female provisioning response, however, was significantly related to nestling age; females undercompensated for male desertion when the nestlings were young, but overcompensated as nestlings approached fledging age, probably because of time constraints that brooding imposed on females with young nestlings. Overall, our results indicate that female Hooded Warblers completely compensate for male moult‐associated nest desertion, and that deserting males pay no reproductive cost for desertion, at least up to the point of fledging. Along with other studies, our findings support the general conclusion that late‐season offspring desertion is likely to evolve only when parental compensation by the deserted partner can minimize costs to the current brood.

中文翻译：

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雌性补偿连帽莺的蜕皮相关的雄性巢穴荒漠。

单亲后代遗弃发生在各种各样的禽类群中，通常反映出父母监护方面的性冲突。在许多物种中，如果荒漠人能够在同一筑巢季节重新交配并繁殖，荒漠将立即为他们带来繁殖利益。在这种情况下，即使遗弃会大大降低当前育雏的适应性，也可能有选择地有利。但是，在许多其他物种中，由于缺少巢穴的机会，父母离开了后期的后代。在这些情况下，遗弃的任何生殖利益都会被延迟，除非被遗弃的父母能够补偿其伴侣的损失并使当前育雏的成本降至最低，否则遗弃不太可能是有利的。我们在戴兜帽的莺Setophaga citrina中测试了这种父母补偿假说是一种物种，雄性在换羽期间经常离开后期的雏鸟和雏鸟。离开巢穴的雌性有效地增加了其配种工作，而离开巢穴的幼鸟获得的食物数量相同，体重增加的速度相同，而且不再像完全由双亲巢穴幼鸟一样死于完全捕食或繁殖。然而，女性的调配反应与育龄密切相关。雏鸟刚成年时，雌性对雄性荒漠的补偿不足，但随着雏鸟接近成年年龄，雌性补偿不足，这可能是因为育雏对雌性雏鸟施加了时间限制。总体而言，我们的结果表明，雌性戴头巾莺完全弥补了雄性与蜕皮相关的巢穴遗弃，离开的男性不为繁殖付出任何繁殖成本，至少到起步阶段为止。与其他研究一起，我们的研究结果支持了这样一个普遍的结论：只有当被遗弃的伴侣的父母补偿可以使目前育雏的成本降至最低时，才可以发展出后期的后代荒漠。