Extrapair paternity and intraspecific brood parasitism in eastern bluebirds revealed by DNA fingerprinting

We assessed the level of extrapair paternity in an Ontario population of Eastern Bluebirds. We examined the relationship between mate guarding and paternity by looking at the correlation between mate guarding and paternity for individual males, and by comparing paternity on territories with one nest box with territories having multiple next boxes. We also assessed whether male or female age, first or second brood, or the breeding stage of the nearest neighbor was associated with extrapair paternity in our study.