Male mate choice, male availability and egg production as limitations on polyandry in the red-necked phalarope

In sequentially polyandrous birds, a female’s second mate faces a substantial risk of cuckoldry due to rapid mate switching and stored sperm. Secondary males are potentially available to females because males arrive asynchronously and/or are recycled into the breeding pool following nest predation. In a study of red-necked phalaropes, Phalaropus lobatus, a sex-role reversed shorebird, we tested the hypotheses that the proportion of females that become polyandrous is proximately limited by: (1) the ability of females to produce eggs, (2) the availability of males as mates and (3) male mate choice. In a colour-banded population in which rates of nest loss were manipulated by researchers, females that produced second clutches required similar lengths of time to complete clutches as those contemporaneously producing first clutches, and increased their egg size relative to their first clutch, making egg limitation unlikely. There was no correlation between an annual measure of males’ availability as potential mates following nest losses and the proportion of females that were polyandrous. The majority of males that lost clutches (66%) repaired with their original female significantly more often than expected by random mate choice (P!0:0001). Although 76% of polyandrous nestings involved renesting males, only 6% (N 1⁄4 46) of renesting males changed mates if their original female was still available. Renesting males that changed mates did not select for or against females that had already produced clutches (NS). Our results suggest that the level of polyandry in this species is not constrained by the females’ abilities to produce more eggs or by the number of males recycling back into the breeding pool. Instead, the proportion of females that become polyandrous is limited by males choosing to renest with their original females, thereby decreasing their probability of caring for eggs potentially fertilized by a female’s previous mate.