Data for: Coordination of care is facilitated by delayed feeding and collective arrivals in the long-tailed tit

When multiple carers invest in a shared brood, there is likely to be conflict among individuals over how much each carer invests. This conflict results in suboptimal investment to the detriment of all carers. It has been proposed that conditional cooperation, i.e. ‘turn-taking’ or ‘alternation’, may resolve this conflict by preventing exploitation. This contentious idea has received some empirical support, but distinguishing active alternation from that expected via passive processes has proved challenging. The aim of this study was to use detailed observations of provisioning to examine whether carers at biparental (parents only) and cooperative (parents and helpers) nests of the long-tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus behave in a context-dependent manner that enhances the level of alternation. First, we show that carers who had been the last to feed waited near the nest (loitering) for longer before feeding when they next arrived at the nest and allowed others to feed first, thus facilita..., Study system and data collection
Field work was conducted in 2020–2021 on a total of 23 breeding pairs of long-tailed tits in an intensively monitored population in the Rivelin Valley, Sheffield, UK (53°23′N, 1°34′W) as part of a long-term study running since 1994. The ~3km2 field site is primarily comprised of deciduous woodland, agricultural pasture and scrub. Individuals were identified by a unique combination of two colour rings which were applied, along with a BTO metal ring (under British Trust for Ornithology licence), to nestlings for birds hatched within the field site or upon capture in mist-nets for adult immigrants (see ethical note below). Nests were found by following adults gathering nest material and once located were checked every two days, with daily checks as nests approached incubation and hatching. Nests were typically built <2m from the ground within brambles Rubus fruticosus, gorse Ulex sp., rose Rosa sp., holly Ilex sp., or >3m from the ground in the forks ..., Raw provisioning data are available as it was directly recorded from field observation. This file can be viewed using Microsoft Excel.
Data were processed using code supplied (Script 1 - Script 7) using the programming software R using RStudio.