Mums prefer sons in plover world
Bellarine MP Lisa Neville said yesterday.
Despite her comments, Sanctuary Living director Stephen Head told the Geelong Advertiser this week he was hopeful the project still had a future.
“The position from our perspective is that the Nelson Cove project is currently at an authority approval impasse without clear resolution,” Mr Head said.
“It is disappointing, although it probably suits us at this moment as a big chunk of our earmarked Geelong investment fund has just been committed to developing a similar scale project in Queensland — a project enthusiastically welcomed, which should create and stimulate many new jobs in an area that badly needs it.”
He said his company was RED-CAPPED plover chicks have been scientifically proved to be daddy’s girls, curious new research from Deakin University has shown.
A study conducted by Deakin University’s School of Life and Environmental Sciences showed that fathers of the bird species were much more attentive to their daughters and mothers to their sons.
Lead researcher Daniel Lees said he believed this was the first conclusive evidence of this kind of behaviour in any species worldwide.
“This is absolutely unique in terms of what we know about parental care in birds,” Mr Lees said. “It’s the first evidence where both male and female parents increase their provision of care for young of the opposite sex.”
Researchers attached radio trackers to red-capped plovers when the chicks hatched and used the technology to observe the plover’s behaviour until the chick became able to fly. Both the mother and father plovers had a role of care through this period.
“The mother will decrease her contribution over time at a lower rate when the majority of her young are males,” he said. “And the father, who gradually takes over her job, will provide more care if the young are female.”
Mr Lees said researchers were yet to come up with a conclusive explanation.
“The only things we could think of to explain it was that a bird of the opposite sex will not compete with them for mates in a subsequent breeding season,” he said.