Decreasing parental task specialization promotes conditional cooperation
Abstract How much to invest in parental care and by who remain puzzling questions fomented by a sexual conflict between parents. Negotiation that facilitates coordinated parental behaviour may be key to ease this costly conflict. However, understanding cooperation requires that the temporal and sex-...
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
Nature Portfolio
2017
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/31a26fec810140e19958da873bc37407 |
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| Sumario: | Abstract How much to invest in parental care and by who remain puzzling questions fomented by a sexual conflict between parents. Negotiation that facilitates coordinated parental behaviour may be key to ease this costly conflict. However, understanding cooperation requires that the temporal and sex-specific variation in parental care, as well as its multivariate nature is considered. Using a biparental bird species and repeated sampling of behavioural activities throughout a major part of reproduction, we show a clear division of tasks between males and females in provisioning, brooding and foraging. Such behavioural specializations fade with increasing nestling age, which stimulates the degree of alternated feeding visits, as a recently promoted form of conditional cooperation. However, such cooperation is thought to benefit offspring development, which is not supported by our data. Thus, from a proximate point of view, conditional cooperation via alternation critically depends on the division of parental tasks, while the ultimate benefits have yet to be shown. |
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