ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2017
Acute peaks of testosterone suppress paternal care: evidence from individual hormonal reaction norms.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Testosterone and estradiol predict male calling performance, but not performance-related tradeoffs, in competitive signaling environments in Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis).Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Article
- Androgen-armoured amazons: reversed sex roles in coucals are associated with testosterone in females but not males.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Supergenes on steroids.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Bidirectional relationships between testosterone and aggression: a critical analysis of four predictions.Integrative and comparative biology · 2022Article
- A single GnRH challenge promotes paternal care, changing nestling growth for one day.Hormones and behavior · 2021Article
- Alloparental care in glassfrogs: males care for unrelated clutches only when associated with their own.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Individual variation and the challenge hypothesis.Hormones and behavior · 2020Review
- Preliminary evidence that androgen signaling is correlated with men's everyday language.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2018Article
- Acute peaks of testosterone suppress paternal care: evidence from individual hormonal reaction norms.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Sex differences in testosterone and hematocrit levels reflect mating system differences of two Arctic-breeding shorebird species.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
- Testing hormonal responses to real and simulated social challenges in a competitive female bird.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A long-standing tenet of evolutionary endocrinology states that testosterone mediates the life-history trade-off between mating and paternal care. However, the support for a role of testosterone in suppressing paternal care is mixed: implantation studies in birds suggest that high-level testosterone implants suppress paternal care, but circulating levels of testosterone and paternal care are typically not correlated. Because any trade-off in real life must be realized with hormone levels that are within an individual's reaction norm, it is crucial to show that natural changes in the hormone can modulate behaviour. Here, we used GnRH-injections to alter testosterone levels of free-living male black redstarts within each individual's hormonal reaction norm: individuals experiencing a short-term peak in testosterone resumed feeding their offspring later and showed a stronger suppression of offspring-feeding behaviour than control males. For the first time, this study demonstrated that short-term peaks in testosterone within the hormonal reaction norm of individuals can suppress paternal behaviour. Our findings reconcile previous seemingly contradictive effects that testosterone implants had on paternal care and the absence of correlations between circulating testosterone levels and paternal care, and demonstrate that the differential production of testosterone within the hormonal reaction norm of single individuals can indeed function as a mechanism to mediate a potential trade-off between mating and parenting. On a broader note, our results suggest that natural and short peaks in testosterone can elicit adaptive behavioural changes.
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