In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

t h e t h r e e - m i n u t e o u t d o o r s m a n 92 attract lions, who are hoping to take advantage of a distracted topi. Topi give an alarm call when a large predator is sighted. Male topi, however, are not all about truth in advertising. A male about to have a female walk away will give a false alarm call, with no lions nearby, attempting to trick her into staying and increasing his mating chances! That’s right, male topi lie. I guess we have a gender standoff in the signaling department. Cow moose and male topi both use vocalizations to achieve their goals. 22 turkeys and love what’s actually happening out there in spring? The spring mating season of the Wild Turkey signals a welcome change from Minnesota winter. As hunters know, solitary toms or groups of toms patrol for available hens, each of which has figured out where they are going to nest. We know that this is the time when turkeys mate, but what are the “rules” or traditions? For example, why do toms hang around together if they are competing for mates? Why not space out and defend territories, like robins? Do all toms eventually mate equally during the breeding season? Does one tom father most of the offspring in an area, like prairie chickens or Sharp-tailed Grouse? Are hens really choosy about which toms they mate with? Do hens fall in love with only one tom? Or when the love of their life is preoccupied, do they “stray”? Can the poults answer the question, “Who’s your daddy?” Until recently, we didn’t know. A researcher from the University of California, Berkeley, Alan Krakauer, used some sophisticated DNA tests to figure out which turkey did what and with whom. These tests use blood and tissue samples from adults, young, and eggs to reveal whether all the eggs in a nest are from I N T H E W O O D S 93 one male and one female, or whether turkeys are “unfaithful.” The results of the tests are very compelling and would stand in a court of law as flawless indicators of paternity and maternity! Krakauer studied Wild Turkeys in California, and his DNA testing provides the first glimpse of what actually happens out there in the spring when turkeys are chasing each other . . . and we’re chasing them. First, about half of the nests could be attributed to one female mating with one male, a system we call monogamy . So then, Wild Turkeys have some “morals” after all. But about 25 percent of nests contained eggs from two hens (usually one or two eggs from one female, the other six to ten from the incubating hen). That means that in some nests hens were incubating eggs that were not their own! In several of these nests, the eggs dumped there by the nonincubating hen were fathered by the same male as the eggs laid by the incubating hen. One enterprising hen laid a couple eggs in another hen’s nest and then laid a clutch of her own that she incubated—probably the best of the not-putting-your-eggs-in-one-basket strategy. Now what about the rest of the flock? About 25 percent of the nests showed multiple paternity—that is, turkey hanky-panky. In these nests, the eggs laid by the incubating hen were fathered by two males (one nest had three separate fathers “indicted” by the DNA evidence). About 12 percent of all baby turkeys were from nests with eggs fathered by two males. So, having a half brother or half sister is pretty common among Wild Turkeys. This detail adds a little more perspective to what we’re seeing out there in the spring. But it’s not the end of the story, because what happens to males and females is different. All females likely mate during the season. Not so for toms. Krakauer concluded that 60 to 80 percent of toms did not mate in a given year, although he indicated this could be an overestimate because he did not find all nests each year. Of this group of unlucky toms, about 25 percent were subordinate members of “coalitions”—groups of toms in which one is the “boss tom” and the others assist him by displaying to hens. Apparently having [3.16.66.206] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 18:31...

Share