Université de Fribourg

Nestling barn owls beg more intensely in the presence of their mother than in the presence of their father

Roulin, Alexandre ; Bersier, Louis-Félix

In: Animal Behaviour, 2007, vol. 74, no. 4, p. 1099-1106

Nestling begging behaviour may be an honest signal of need used by parents to adjust optimally both feeding rate and within-brood food allocation. Although several studies showed that mothers and fathers can be differentially responsive to nestling begging behaviour with one parent showing a stronger tendency to feed the offspring that beg the most, little information is yet available on whether...