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350 results for “Parental care”
Data from: The costs of parental care: a meta-analysis of the trade-off between parental effort and survival in birds
A fundamental premise of life-history theory is that organisms that increase current reproductive investment suffer increased mortality. Possibly the most studied life-history phenotypic relationship is the trade-off between parental effort and survival. However, evidence supporting this trade-off is equivocal. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to test the generality of this tenet. Using experimental studies that manipulated parental effort in birds we show that: 1) the effect of parental effort on survival was similar across species regardless of phylogeny, 2) individuals that experienced reduced parental effort had similar survival probabilities than control individuals, regardless of sex, and 3) males that experienced increased parental effort were less likely to survive than control males, whereas females that experienced increased effort were just as likely to survive as control females. Our results suggest that the trade-off between parental effort and survival is more complex than previously assumed. Finally, our study provides recommendations of unexplored avenues of future research into life-history trade-offs.
Data from: Flexibility in the duration of parental care: female leopards prioritise cub survival over reproductive output
1.Deciding when to terminate care of offspring is a key consideration for parents. Prolonging care may increase fitness of current offspring, but it can also reduce opportunities for future reproduction. Despite its evolutionary importance, few studies have explored the optimal duration of parental care, particularly among large carnivores. 2.We used a 40-year dataset to assess the trade-offs associated with the length of maternal care in leopards in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa. We compared the costs imposed by care on the survival and residual reproductive value of leopard mothers against the benefits derived from maternal care in terms of increased offspring survival, recruitment and reproduction. We also examined the demographic and ecological factors affecting the duration of care in light of five explanatory hypotheses: litter-size, sex-allocation, resource-limitation, timing-of-independence, and terminal-investment. 3.Duration of care exhibited by female leopards varied markedly, from 9–35 months. Mothers did not appear to suffer any short- or long-term survival costs from caring for cubs, but extending care reduced the number of litters that mothers could produce during their lifetimes. Interestingly, the duration of care did not appear to affect the post-independence survival or reproductive success of offspring (although it may have indirectly affected offspring survival by influencing dispersal distance). However, results from generalised linear mixed models showed that mothers prolonged care during periods of prey scarcity, supporting the resource-limitation hypothesis. Female leopards also cared for sons longer than daughters, in line with the sex-allocation hypothesis. 4.Cub survival is an important determinant of the lifetime reproductive success in leopards. By buffering offspring against environmental perturbation without jeopardizing their own survivorship, female leopards apparently 'hedge their bets' with current offspring rather than gamble on future offspring which have a small probability of surviving. 5.In many species, parents put their own needs before that of their offspring. Leopard mothers appear sensitive to their offspring's demands, and adjust levels of care accordingly.
Data from: Sexual size dimorphism is not associated with the evolution of parental care in frogs
Sex differences in parental care are thought to arise from differential selection on the sexes. Sexual dimorphism, including sexual size dimorphism (SSD), is often used as a proxy for sexual selection on males. Some studies have found an association between male-biased SSD (i.e., males larger than females) and the loss of paternal care. While the relationship between sexual selection on males and parental care evolution has been studied extensively, the relationship between female-biased SSD (i.e., females larger than males) and the evolution of parental care has received very little attention. Thus, we have little knowledge of whether female-biased SSD coevolves with parental care. In species displaying female-biased SSD, we might expect dimorphism to be associated with the evolution of paternal care or perhaps the loss of maternal care. Here, drawing on data for 99 extant frog species, we use comparative methods to evaluate how parental care and female-biased SSD have evolved over time. Generally, we find no significant correlation between the evolution of parental care and female-biased SSD in frogs. This suggests that differential selection on body size between the sexes is unlikely to have driven the evolution of parental care in these clades and questions whether we should expect sexual dimorphism to exhibit a general relationship with the evolution of sex differences in parental care.
Data from: Parental care and sibling competition independently increase phenotypic variation among burying beetle siblings
Several recent hypotheses suggest that parental care can influence the extent of phenotypic variation within populations; however, there have been few tests of these ideas. We exploited the facultative nature of post-hatching parental care in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, to test whether parental care influences the expression of phenotypic variation in an important fitness trait (body size). We found that parental care and brood size (which influences sibling competition) had positive and independent effects on variation in body size. First, the mean coefficient of variation (CV) of body size was significantly greater in broods that received care than in those that did not. Second, CV body size increased with brood size in both parental care treatments. These results are not consistent with predictions from recent hypotheses that predict parental care will reduce phenotypic variation among siblings. The positive effects of parental care and brood size on phenotypic variation that we observed are likely due to sibling competition for access to provisioning parents and competition for limiting resources contained in the breeding carcass. Our results suggest that future theory linking parental care to the generation and maintenance of phenotypic variation must integrate the nature of interactions among family members.
Data from: Parental care mitigates carry-over effects of poor early conditions on offspring growth
Poor developmental conditions can have long-lasting negative effects on offspring phenotypes, but impacts often differ among species. Contrasting responses may reflect disparities in experimental protocols among single-species studies or inherent differences among species in their sensitivity to early conditions and/or ability to mitigate negative impacts. We used a common experimental protocol to assess and compare the role of parental care in mitigating effects of poor early conditions on offspring among 4 sympatric bird species in the wild. We experimentally induced low incubation temperatures and examined effects on embryonic developmental rates, hatching success, nestling growth rates, and parental responses. We examined the generality of these effects across 4 species that differ in their phylogenetic history, breeding ecology, and life histories. We found that cooling led to delayed hatching in all species, but carry-over effects on offspring differed among species. Parents of some but not all species increased their offspring provisioning rates in response to experimental cooling with critical benefits for offspring growth rates. Our study shows for the first time that species exhibit clear differences in the degree to which they are affected by poor early conditions. Observed differences among species demonstrate that parental care is a critical mechanism for mitigating potential negative effects on offspring and suggest that parental responses may be constrained to varying degrees by ecology and life histories.
Data from: Negative association between parental care and sibling cooperation in earwigs: a new perspective on the early evolution of family life?
The evolution of family life requires net fitness benefits for offspring, which are commonly assumed to mainly derive from parental care. However, an additional source of benefits for offspring is often overlooked: cooperative interactions among juvenile siblings. In this study, we examined how sibling cooperation and parental care could jointly contribute to the early evolution of family life. Specifically, we tested whether the level of food transferred among siblings (sibling cooperation) in the European earwig Forficula auricularia (1) depends on the level of maternal food provisioning (parental care), and (2) is translated into offspring survival, as well as female investment into future reproduction. We show that higher levels of sibling food transfer were associated with lower levels of maternal food provisioning, possibly reflecting a compensatory relationship between sibling cooperation and maternal care. Furthermore, the level of sibling food transfer did not influence offspring survival, but was associated with negative effects on the production of the second and terminal clutch by the tending mothers. These findings indicate that sibling cooperation could mitigate the detrimental effects on offspring survival that result from being tended by low quality mothers. More generally, they are in line with the hypothesis that sibling cooperation is an ancestral behavior that can be retained to compensate for insufficient levels of parental investment.
Data from: Evolution of iris colour in relation to cavity nesting and parental care in passerine birds
Strong selection pressures are known to act on animal coloration. Although many animals vary in eye colour, virtually no research has investigated the functional significance of these colour traits. Passeriformes have a range of iris colours, making them an ideal system to investigate how and why iris colour has evolved. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we tested the hypothesis that conspicuous iris colour in passerine birds evolved in response to (a) coordination of offspring care and (b) cavity nesting, two traits thought to be involved in intra-specific gaze sensitivity. We found that iris colour and cooperative offspring care by two or more individuals evolved independently, suggesting that bright eyes are not important for coordinating parental care through eye gaze. Furthermore, we found that evolution between iris colour and nesting behaviour did occur in a dependent manner, but contrary to predictions, transitions to coloured eyes were not more frequent in cavity nesters than non-cavity nesters. Instead, our results indicate that selection away from having bright eyes was much stronger in non-cavity nesters than cavity nesters, perhaps because conspicuous eye coloration in species not concealed within a cavity would be more visible to predators.
Data from: Parental care and the evolution of terrestriality in frogs
Frogs and toads (Anura) exhibit some of the most diverse parental strategies in vertebrates. Identifying the evolutionary origins of parenting is fundamental to understanding the relationships between sexual selection, social evolution and parental care systems of contemporary Anura. Moreover, parenting has been hypothesized to allow the invasion of terrestrial habitats by the ancestors of terrestrial vertebrates. Using comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of frogs and toads based on data from over 1000 species that represent 46 out of 55 Anura families, we test whether parental care is associated with terrestrial reproduction and several life history traits. Here we show that both the duration of care and offspring protection by males and females have co-evolved with terrestrial reproduction. Sexual size dimorphism is also related to care, since large male size relative to female size is associated with increased paternal care. Furthermore, increased egg size and reduced clutch volume are associated with increased care in bivariate but not in multivariate analyses, suggesting that the relationships between care, egg size and clutch volume are mediated by terrestrial reproduction. Taken together, our results suggest that parenting by males and females has co-evolved, and complex parenting traits have evolved several times independently in Anura in response to breeding in terrestrial environments.
Data from: Male burying beetles extend, not reduce, parental care duration when reproductive competition is high
Male parents spend less time caring than females in many species with biparental care. The traditional explanation for this pattern is that males have lower confidence of parentage, so they desert earlier in favor of pursuing other mating opportunities. However, one recent alternative hypothesis is that prolonged male parental care might also evolve if staying to care actively improves paternity. If this is the case, an increase in reproductive competition should be associated with increased paternal care. To test this prediction we manipulated the level of reproductive competition experienced by burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides (Herbst, 1783). We found that caregiving males stayed for longer and mated more frequently with their partner when reproductive competition was greater. Reproductive productivity did not increase when males extended care. Our findings provide support for the increased paternity hypothesis. Extended duration of parental care may be a male tactic both protecting investment (in the current brood) and maximising paternity (in subsequent brood(s) via female stored sperm) even if this fails to maximise current reproductive productivity and creates conflict of interest with their mate via costs associated with increased mating frequency.
Figure 3 in Reproductive biology of direct developing and threatened frog Adelophryne maranguapensis (Anura, Eleutherodactylidae) reveals a cryptic reproductive mode for anurans and the first record of parental care for the genus
Figure 3. Female Adelophryne maranguapensis showing parental care activity (clutch 13, Table 1).
Figure 1 in Reproductive biology of direct developing and threatened frog Adelophryne maranguapensis (Anura, Eleutherodactylidae) reveals a cryptic reproductive mode for anurans and the first record of parental care for the genus
Figure 1. Fieldwork areas. Riacho Beija-flor (a) and Pico da Rajada (b).
Data in support of Patterns of parental care and movement in divided broods of Golden-winged Warblers
<p>This dataset contains observations of parental care and movement for divided broods of Golden-winged Warblers tracked from fledging until indpendence at three sites in Minnesota and Manitoba. Movement data consists of minimum daily distance (i.e., the linear distance between daily locations) and daily change in azimuth (i.e., the daily change in direction traveled relative to the previous day). Parental care data includes, parental attendance, provisioning rate, unattended begging rate (i.e., fledgling begging without a parent present), and total begging rate. We also include spatial data in the form of distance between sub-broods and within sub-broods. These data can be used to replicate the findings of the publication "Patterns of Parental Care and Movement in Divided Broods of Golden-winged Warblers", published in the Journal of Avian Biology. Detailed methodology may be found in that manuscript.</p>
Paleozoic origins of cheilostome bryozoans and their parental care inferred by a new genome-skimmed phylogeny
<div class="page"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> <p class="MsoNormal">Phylogenetic relationships and the timing of evolutionary events are essential for understanding evolution on longer time scales. Cheilostome bryozoans are a group of ubiquitous, species-rich, marine colonial organisms with an excellent fossil record but lack phylogenetic relationships inferred from molecular data. We present genome-skimmed data for 395 cheilostomes and combine these with 315 published sequences to infer relationships and the timing of key events among c. 500 cheilostome species. We find that named cheilostome genera and species are phylogenetically coherent, rendering fossil or contemporary specimens readily delimited using only skeletal morphology. Our phylogeny shows that parental care in the form of brooding evolved several times independently but was never lost in cheilostomes. Our fossil calibration, robust to varied assumptions, indicates that the cheilostome lineage and parental care therein could have Paleozoic origins, much older than the first known fossil record of cheilostomes in the Late Jurassic.</p> </div> </div> </div>
Figure 8 in Monitoring the feeding and parental care behavior of a pair of free-living owls (Tyto furcata) in the nest during the reproductive period in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Figure 8. Activities schedule of a Tyto furcata family registered within a urban nest box in Campos dos Goytacazes. Each bar shows the total number of days of the activity.
Figure 7 in Monitoring the feeding and parental care behavior of a pair of free-living owls (Tyto furcata) in the nest during the reproductive period in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Figure 7. The average time per day (minutes) dedicated per Tyto furcata adults to teaching the feeding behavior for the brood, from the birth until left the nest. Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ.
Table 1 in Effect Of Parental Care On The Duration Of Larval Development And Offspring Survival In Nicrophorus Mexicanus Matthews (Coleoptera: Silphidae)
<p><b>Table 1.</b> Percentage of offspring survival in <i>N. mexicanus</i> in the three experimental groups. ni = number initial of larvae hatching for group. L1 = first instar larvae, L2 = second instar larvae, L3 = third instar larvae, pp = prepupae, p = pupae.</p><table><tbody><tr><th></th><th>Offspring Survival (%)</th><th>)</th></tr></tbody><tbody><tr><th>Treatment groups</th><td>ni</td><td>L1­L2 L3­PP PP­P</td></tr><tr><th>1) Control: parental care</th><td>390</td><td>97</td><td>90 70</td><td>70</td></tr><tr><th>2) With Brood­mass. Parents removed pre­hatching</th><td>468</td><td>95</td><td>89 60</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><th>3) Without care parental: with fresh meat, brood­mass</th><td>351</td><td>90</td><td>77 28</td><td>28</td></tr><tr><th>no present and parents removed pre­hatching</th><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>
Table 2 in Effect Of Parental Care On The Duration Of Larval Development And Offspring Survival In Nicrophorus Mexicanus Matthews (Coleoptera: Silphidae)
<p><b>Table 2.</b> Significant differences in the variation the number of offspring surviving to adult emergence between three experimental groups.</p><table><tbody><tr><th>Compared groups</th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th></tr></tbody><tbody><tr><td>Difference</td><td>SE</td><td>Q</td><td>Q0.05 P <0­05</td></tr><tr><th>1 vs 3 1 vs 2</th><td>28.13–12.78 = 15.35 28.13–25.93 = 2.2</td><td>4.77 4.68</td><td>3.218 0.47</td><td>2.394 2.394</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><th>2 vs 3</th><td>25.93–12.78 = 13.15</td><td>4.77</td><td>2.75</td><td>2.394</td><td>*</td></tr><tr><th>Experimental groups</th><td>1</td><td></td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td></td></tr><tr><th>average ranges sample size</th><td>28.13 15</td><td></td><td>25.93 14</td><td>12.78 15</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table><p>* indicate a significant difference.</p>
Parental care in Darwin's finches
<p>Selection should act on parental care and favour parental investment decisions that optimise the number of offspring produced. Such predictions have been robustly tested in predation risk contexts, but little is known about parental care investment trade-offs under conditions of parasitism. The avian vampire fly, <i>Philornis downsi</i> (Diptera: Muscidae), is a myasis-causing ectoparasite accidentally introduced to the Galápagos Islands, and one of the major causes of failure in Darwin's finch nests. With an 11-year dataset spanning 21 years, we examine the relationship between parental care behaviours and the number of fly larvae and pupae in Darwin's finch nests. We do so across three host species (<i>Camarhynchus</i> <i>parvulus</i>, <i>C. pauper</i>, <i>Geospiza fuliginosa</i>) and one hybrid <i>Camarhynchus </i>group. Nests with longer female brooding duration had fewer parasites, and this effect intensified with higher male food delivery to chicks. Neither male age nor number of nest provisioning visits alone were directly associated with parasite burden. While the causal mechanisms remain unknown, we provide the first empirical study showing that female in-nest attendance duration is negatively related to ectoparasite burden. We predict selection for coordinated host male and female behaviour to reduce gaps in nest attendance, especially under conditions of novel and introduced ectoparasites.</p>
Data from: Parental care amplifies changes in offspring production in a disturbed environment
<p>Recruitment is usually negatively density-dependent with fewer offspring surviving when more are produced. Parental care could alter the pattern as behaviours that maximize individual fitness are not necessarily adaptive at the population level. We manipulated the number of eggs spawned into the nests of male threespine stickleback, and found egg survival to be positively density-dependent. This reversed negative density-dependent survival observed in the absence of parental care. The reversal was caused my males investing more in parental care when receiving more eggs, while favouring future reproductive opportunities when receiving few eggs. Density-dependent parental care thus amplified changes in offspring production in relation to number of eggs spawned. Such amplification may occur in disturbed environments where human activities have altered female fecundity and males may receive more or less eggs than expected. The optimal balancing between present and future parental investment can then be distorted, resulting in maladaptive parental behaviour that reduces offspring survival. These results suggest that behaviours that have evolved to maximize individual fitness under pristine conditions can become mal-adaptive under disturbed conditions and influence the recruitment of offspring into a population. Considering that human activities are rapidly transforming environments, such mal-adaptive behavioural responses could be common and magnify negative effects of human activities on population dynamics.</p>
FIGURE 3 in Mud-packing frog: A novel breeding behaviour and parental care in a stream dwelling new species of Nyctibatrachus (Amphibia, Anura, Nyctibatrachidae)
FIGURE 3. Advertisement call spectrogram of Nyctibatrachus jog. a. Amplitude and b. Spectrogram.
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