Reproductive asynchrony within social groups of female eastern wild turkeys

Eastern wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) exhibit social hierarchies wherein dominance is established through agnostic interactions within social groups. When dominant individuals effectively monopolize reproductive opportunities, asynchronous breeding can occur, which may disproportionately influence individual fitness within social groups. For females, higher ranked individuals may witness reproductive advantages associated with earlier nesting than subordinate conspecifics. We evaluated reproductive synchrony within and between presumed social groups of GPS-tagged female eastern wild turkeys by inferring female social rank based on timing of nest initiation. We examined 30 social groups with an average of 7 females per group (range 2 - 15) during 2014-2019 in west-central Louisiana. We found that the estimated number of days between first nest initiation across females within social groups varied between 3-7 days across years, and the number of days between nest attempts was lower for successful than failed attempts. Our findings suggest that social hierarchies may influence reproductive success in female wild turkeys, and we postulate that social constraints could cause variation in timing of nest initiation for females within social groups.