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How did the Great Auk raise its young?
Author(s) -
HOUSTON A. I.,
WOOD J.,
WILKINSON M.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02047.x
Subject(s) - precocial , extant taxon , biology , range (aeronautics) , nest (protein structural motif) , zoology , evolutionary biology , materials science , composite material , biochemistry
The extant auks show three strategies of chick rearing – precocial (chicks leave the nest site when a few days old), intermediate (young raised to a mass of around 20% of adult mass) and semi‐precocial (young raised to a mass of around 65% of adult mass). It is not known which strategy the extinct Great Auk used. In this paper, we investigate this issue by a novel combination of a time and energy budget model and phylogenetic comparison. The first approach indicates that for reasonable estimates of the equation parameters, the Great Auk could have followed an intermediate strategy. For a limited range of parameters, the Great Auk could have followed the semi‐precocial strategy. Phylogenetic comparison shows that it is unlikely that the Great Auk followed a precocial strategy. The results suggest that the Great Auk followed an intermediate strategy as does its presumed closest extant relative the Razorbill.