During years of high sea surface temperature, food resources for glaucous-winged gulls (Larus glaucescens) are scarce. In response, male gulls cannibalize the eggs of neighbors. When this occurs, female gulls in dense areas of the colony adopt a tactic of egg-laying synchrony, in which they lay eggs synchronously on an every-other-day schedule. Field observations show that the first-laid egg of each clutch is the most likely to be cannibalized. In this paper, we analyzed a discrete-time model of egg-laying behavior that tracks egg order in the nest. Using Jury conditions, we found that the equilibrium destabilizes into a two-cycle as colony density (nests per unit area) increases through a critical value, and that the two-cycle becomes increasingly synchronous as density increases further. We demonstrated that more eggs survive cannibalism in synchronous colonies than in nonsynchronous colonies.

中文翻译：

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海鸟产卵行为的同类相食和同步性

在海面温度高的年份，白翅鸥（Larus glaucescens ）的食物资源) 稀缺。作为回应，雄海鸥会吃邻居的蛋。当这种情况发生时，群体密集区域的雌性海鸥采取同步产卵的策略，即每隔一天同步产卵。实地观察表明，每个窝的第一个蛋最有可能被蚕食。在本文中，我们分析了跟踪巢中蛋顺序的产蛋行为的离散时间模型。使用陪审团条件，我们发现随着菌落密度（每单位面积的巢穴）增加超过临界值，平衡不稳定为两个循环，并且随着密度进一步增加，两个循环变得越来越同步。我们证明了在同步菌落中比在非同步菌落中更多的卵在自相残杀中存活下来。