This Turkey Tuesday is about alternative breeding strategies used by wild turkeys. We see toms strutting, and in most ways, they look the same to us – but we know that hens typically choose to breed with the dominant, fittest toms. Well, emerging genetics testing of hatched nests is revealing some interesting patterns that speak to the complexity of the wild turkey’s mating system. One, although most hatched clutches are fathered by a single tom, ~40% of nests show evidence of multi-paternity. Two, the frequency of multiple toms being represented in hatched clutches appears consistent across sites – interestingly, the most likely scenario appears to be that 2 toms father eggs within a clutch, but we’ve documented instances of 3 or more! Three, multi-paternity accounts for >10% of the poults produced, and is more likely to occur earlier in the breeding season, which has also been found in other birds. But why is multi-paternity important in some birds like wild turkeys? Well, females are trying to increase the chances of having higher quality offspring and increase the number of surviving poults – breeding with multiple toms is akin to not putting all your eggs in one basket so to speak. Lastly, we’re also seeing that >10% of hatched nests show evidence of multi-maternity – more than one hen lays eggs in a single clutch – and many of these cases are quasi parasitism. That is, the parasitic hen bred with the same tom as the host hen – strange things happen in the woods folks! The take home is, some wild turkey hens appear to seek alternative mating strategies to produce poults and increase their own fitness.
Pic by Clayton Worrell.
