at Google ScholarTitle data
Kramer, Jos ; Klauke, Nadine ; Bauer, Michael ; Schaefer, H. Martin:
No Evidence for Enforced Alloparental Care in a Cooperatively Breeding Parrot.
In: Ethology.
Vol. 122
(2016)
Issue 5
.
- pp. 389-398.
ISSN 1439-0310
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/eth.12486
Abstract in another language
In cooperatively breeding species, in which non-breeding helpers assist in rearing the offspring of breeding individuals, conflicts of interest commonly occur between breeders and helpers over their respective contributions to offspring care. During such conflicts, breeders might use aggressive behavior to enforce contributions of helpers to offspring care, especially if helpers are not related to the breeders and their offspring and thus do not stand to gain indirect fitness benefits by helping. Using a combination of behavioral and genetic data, we investigated in the cooperatively breeding El Oro parakeet Pyrrhura orcesi (i) whether breeders are commonly dominant over helpers, (ii) whether they use aggressive behavior toward helpers to enforce offspring provisioning, and (iii) whether the relatedness of helpers to the nestlings affects the frequency of —or the reaction of helpers to—such aggressions. Even though breeders were generally dominant over helpers, we found no evidence for the enforcement of alloparental care. This finding was independent of the relatedness between helpers and nestlings, even though distantly related helpers overall contributed little to offspring care. We suggest that the inability of breeders to properly assess the work rates of their helpers at least partly explains the absence of enforcement. More generally, our results add to a body of evidence suggesting that enforcement might be an exceptional rather than a general mechanism underlying the expression of alloparental care in cooperatively breeding species.
Further data
| Item Type: | Article in a journal |
|---|---|
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Institutions of the University: | Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Biology > Chair Animal Ecology II - Evolutionary Animal Ecology > Chair Animal Ecology II - Evolutionary Animal Ecology - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sandra Steiger |
| Result of work at the UBT: | No |
| DDC Subjects: | 500 Science > 500 Natural sciences 500 Science > 570 Life sciences, biology 500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology) |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Oct 2025 07:40 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Oct 2025 07:40 |
| URI: | https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/94973 |