Antoinette Brown Blackwell—The mother of asymmetric parental investment theory.

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-99
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Oberzaucher
Keyword(s):  
Parental Investment ◽  
Investment Theory ◽  
Parental Investment Theory

scholarly journals Parental investment in child health in sub-Saharan Africa: a cross-national study of health-seeking behaviour

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 150460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Uggla ◽  
Ruth Mace
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Birth Order ◽  
Parental Investment ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Health Seeking Behaviour ◽  
Health Seeking ◽  
Investment Theory ◽  
Parental Investment Theory ◽  
Sub Saharan

Parents face trade-offs between investing in child health and other fitness enhancing activities. In humans, parental investment theory has mostly been examined through the analysis of differential child outcomes, with less emphasis on the actions parents take to further a particular offspring’s condition. Here, we make use of household data on health-seeking for children in a high mortality context where such behaviours are crucial for offspring survival. Using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from 17 sub-Saharan African countries, we examine whether maternal factors (age, health, marital status) and child factors (birth order, health, sex, age) independently influence parental investment in health-seeking behaviours: two preventative behaviours (malaria net use and immunization) and two curative ones (treating fever and diarrhoea). Results indicate that children with lower birth order, older mothers and mothers with better health status have higher odds of investment. The effects of a child’s sex and health status and whether the mother is polygynously married vary depending on the type of health-seeking behaviour (preventative versus curative). We discuss how these results square with predictions from parental investment theory pertaining to the state of mothers and children, and reflect on some potential mechanisms and directions for future research.

Parental Investment Theory and Nest Defense by Eastern Kingbirds

2009 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas J. Redmond ◽  
Michael T. Murphy ◽  
Amy C. Dolan ◽  
Karen Sexton
Keyword(s):  
Parental Investment ◽  
Nest Defense ◽  
Investment Theory ◽  
Parental Investment Theory

scholarly journals A classic question revisited in red-winged blackbirds: disentangling confounding hypotheses surrounding parental investment theory and nest defense intensity

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (11) ◽  
pp. 1843-1856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin J. Shew ◽  
Jorista van der Merwe ◽  
Eric M. Schauber ◽  
Briana K. Tallitsch ◽  
Clayton K. Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Parental Investment ◽  
Nest Defense ◽  
Investment Theory ◽  
Parental Investment Theory

scholarly journals Reed Warbler Hosts Do Not Fine-Tune Mobbing Defenses During the Breeding Season, Even When Cuckoos Are Rare

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deryk Tolman ◽  
Daniela Campobello ◽  
Katja Rönkä ◽  
Edward Kluen ◽  
Rose Thorogood
Keyword(s):  
Parental Investment ◽  
Brood Parasitism ◽  
Seasonal Changes ◽  
Reed Warbler ◽  
Seasonal Differences ◽  
Investment Theory ◽  
Acrocephalus Scirpaceus ◽  
Parental Investment Theory ◽  
Seasonal Decline ◽  
Fine Tune

Hosts of brood parasitic cuckoos often employ mobbing attacks to defend their nests and, when mobbing is costly, hosts are predicted to adjust their mobbing to match parasitism risk. While evidence exists for fine-tuned plasticity, it remains unclear why mobbing does not track larger seasonal changes in parasitism risk. Here we test a possible explanation from parental investment theory: parents should defend their current brood more intensively as the opportunity to replace it declines (re-nesting potential), and therefore “counteract” any apparent seasonal decline to match parasitism risk. We take advantage of mobbing experiments conducted at two sites where reed warblers (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) experience (in Italy), or do not experience (in Finland), brood parasitism. We predicted that mobbing of cuckoos should be higher overall in Italy, but remain constant over the season as in other parasitised sites, whereas in Finland where cuckoos do not pose a local threat, we predicted that mobbing should be low at the beginning of the season but increase as re-nesting potential declined. However, while cuckoos were more likely to be mobbed in Italy, we found little evidence that mobbing changed over the season at either the parasitized or non-parasitized sites. This suggests that re-nesting potential has either little influence on mobbing behavior, or that its effects are obscured by other seasonal differences in ecology or experience of hosts.

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