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: Arne Iserbyt, Nolwenn Fresneau, Tiffanie Kortenhoff, Marcel Eens, Wendt Müller
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2017
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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.