scholarly journals The evolution of avian parental care

2002 ◽  
Vol 357 (1419) ◽  
pp. 241-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. T. Burley ◽  
K. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Parental Investment ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Stage Iv ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Cost Of Care ◽  
Biparental Care ◽  
Social Monogamy ◽  
Care Giving ◽  
Initial Cost

A stage model traces key behavioural tactics and life–history traits that are involved in the transition from promiscuity with no parental care, the mating system that typifies reptiles, to that typical of most birds, social monogamy with biparental care. In stage I, females assumed increasing parental investment in precocial young, female choice of mates increased, female–biased mating dispersal evolved and population sex ratios became male biased. In stage II, consortships between mating partners allowed males to attract rare social mates, provided a mechanism for paternity assessment and increased female ability to assess mate quality. In stage III, relative female scarcity enabled females to demand parental investment contributions from males having some paternity certainty. This innovation was facilitated by the nature of avian parental care; i.e. most care–giving activities can be adopted in small units. Moreover, the initial cost of care giving to males was small compared with its benefit to females. Males, however, tended to decline to assume non–partitionable, risky, or relatively costly parental activities. In stage IV, altriciality coevolved with increasing biparental care, resulting in social monogamy. Approaches for testing behavioural hypotheses are suggested.

scholarly journals Why is mutual mate choice not the norm? Operational sex ratios, sex roles and the evolution of sexually dimorphic and monomorphic signalling

2002 ◽  
Vol 357 (1419) ◽  
pp. 319-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Kokko ◽  
R. A. Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Parental Investment ◽  
Sex Roles ◽  
Mating Strategies ◽  
Operational Sex Ratio ◽  
Encounter Rate ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Biparental Care ◽  
Mutual Mate Choice

Biases in the operational sex ratio (OSR) are seen as the fundamental reason behind differential competition for mates in the two sexes, and as a strong determinant behind differences in choosiness. This view has been challenged by Kokko and Monaghan, who argue that sex–specific parental investment, mortalities, mate–encounter rates and quality variation determine the mating system in a way that is not reducible to the OSR. We develop a game–theoretic model of choosiness, signalling and parental care, to examine (i) whether the results of Kokko and Monaghan remain robust when its simplifying assumptions are relaxed, (ii) how parental care coevolves with mating strategies and the OSR and (iii) why mutual mate choice is observed relatively rarely even when both sexes vary in quality. We find qualitative agreement with the simpler approach: parental investment is the primary determinant of sex roles instead of the OSR, and factors promoting choosiness are high species–specific mate–encounter rate, high sex–specific mate–encounter rate, high cost of breeding (parental investment), low cost of mate searching and highly variable quality of the opposite sex. The coevolution of parental care and mating strategies hinders mutual mate choice if one parent can compensate for reduced care by the other, but promotes it if offspring survival depends greatly on biparental care. We argue that the relative rarity of mutual mate choice is not due to biases in the OSR. Instead, we describe processes by which sexual strategies tend to diverge. This divergence is prevented, and mutual mate choice maintained, if synergistic benefits of biparental care render parental investment both high and not too different in the two sexes.

scholarly journals Parental investment and immune dynamics in sex-role reversed pipefishes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel S. Keller ◽  
Olivia Roth
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Parental Investment ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Immune Defense ◽  
Paternal Investment ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Syngnathus Typhle ◽  
Care Giving ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Male Pregnancy

AbstractParental care elevates reproductive success by allocating resources into the upbringing of the offspring. However, it also imposes strong costs for the care giving parent and can foster sexual dimorphism. Trade-offs between the reproductive system and the immune system may result in differential immunological capacities between the care-providing and the non-care-providing parent. Usually, providing care is restricted to the female sex making it impossible to study a sex-independent influence of parental investment on sexual immune dimorphism. The decoupling of sex-dependent parental investment and their influences on the parental immunological capacity, however, is possible in syngnathids, which evolved the unique male pregnancy on a gradient ranging from a simple carrying of eggs on the trunk (Nerophinae, low paternal investment) to full internal pregnancy (Syngnathus, high paternal investment). In this study, we compared candidate gene expression between females and males of different gravity stages in three species of syngnathids (Syngnathus typhle, Syngnathus rostellatus and Nerophis ophidion) with different male pregnancy intensities to determine how parental investment influences sexual immune dimorphism. While our data failed to detect sexual immune dimorphism in the subset of candidate genes assessed, we show a parental care specific resource-allocation trade-off between investment into pregnancy and immune defense when parental care is provided.

Mating strategies, parental investment and mutual ornamentation in Iberian Rock Sparrows (Petronia petronia)

Behaviour ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 150 (14) ◽  
pp. 1641-1663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente García-Navas ◽  
Amanda García del Rincón ◽  
Esperanza S. Ferrer ◽  
Hicham Fathi
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Parental Investment ◽  
Paternal Care ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Mating Strategies ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Social Monogamy ◽  
Uniparental Care ◽  
Female Ornamentation ◽  
Brood Desertion

Relatively few bird species show complex social mating systems whose preponderance in a population is likely to affect the patterns of parental care observed there. In turn, parental investment is likely to be related to the expression of certain ornaments, which may reveal information on the bearer’s individual quality. Here we address both issues in a species characterised by several forms of parental care (both biparental and uniparental care) and in which both sexes possess a yellow breast patch, the rock sparrow (Petronia petronia). In our population, males contributed more to the care of the young in comparison with other populations. Social monogamy was the most frequent mating pattern and the percentage of cases of female (or male) brood desertion was lower with respect to that reported in previous studies, suggesting a flexible behaviour of this species to deal with different social environments. Birds did not pair assortatively with respect to the size of the yellow breast patch and we found no significant relationship between this trait and the frequency with which parents provisioned their chicks. However, we observed a positive relationship between male yellow patch size and nestling tarsus length, which suggests that more ornamented males are better parents. Males, but not females, differentially allocated parental investment in response to female ornamentation, although the benefits that males may gain from choosing more attractive females remain unidentified. Our results on paternal care investment along with previous studies on this species, reinforcing the view that the rock sparrow constitutes a good model to study sexual conflict over parental care under different social environments.

Experimentally increased costs of parental care are shunted to offspring in species with extended care

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gretchen F. Wagner ◽  
Emeline Mourocq ◽  
Michael Griesser
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Total Duration ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Life History Strategy ◽  
Experimental Treatment ◽  
Cost Of Care ◽  
Adult Survival ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Trade Offs

Biparental care systems are a valuable model to examine conflict, cooperation, and coordination between unrelated individuals, as the product of the interactions between the parents influences the fitness of both individuals. A common experimental technique for testing coordinated responses to changes in the costs of parental care is to temporarily handicap one parent, inducing a higher cost of providing care. However, dissimilarity in experimental designs of these studies has hindered interspecific comparisons of the patterns of cost distribution between parents and offspring. Here we apply a comparative experimental approach by handicapping a parent at nests of five bird species using the same experimental treatment. In some species, a decrease in care by a handicapped parent was compensated by its partner, while in others the increased costs of care were shunted to the offspring. Parental responses to an increased cost of care primarily depended on the total duration of care that offspring require. However, life history pace (i.e., adult survival and fecundity) did not influence parental decisions when faced with a higher cost of caring. Our study highlights that a greater attention to intergenerational trade-offs is warranted, particularly in species with a large burden of parental care. Moreover, we demonstrate that parental care decisions may be weighed more against physiological workload constraints than against future prospects of reproduction, supporting evidence that avian species may devote comparable amounts of energy into survival, regardless of life history strategy.

scholarly journals Tri-axial accelerometry shows differences in energy expenditure and parental effort throughout the breeding season in long-lived raptors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascual LÓPEZ-LÓPEZ ◽  
Arturo M PERONA ◽  
Olga EGEA-CASAS ◽  
Jon ETXEBARRIA MORANT ◽  
Vicente URIOS
Keyword(s):  
Energy Expenditure ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Breeding Season ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Biparental Care ◽  
Breeding Ecology ◽  
Parental Effort ◽  
Ecological Data ◽  
Movement Trajectories

Abstract Cutting-edge technologies are extremely useful to develop new workflows in studying ecological data, particularly to understand animal behaviour and movement trajectories at the individual level. Although parental care is a well-studied phenomenon, most studies have been focused on direct observational or video recording data, as well as experimental manipulation. Therefore, what happens out of our sight still remains unknown. Using high-frequency GPS/GSM dataloggers and tri-axial accelerometers we monitored 25 Bonelli’s eagles (Aquila fasciata) during the breeding season to understand parental activities from a broader perspective. We used recursive data, measured as number of visits and residence time, to reveal nest attendance patterns of biparental care with role specialization between sexes. Accelerometry data interpreted as the Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration, a proxy of energy expenditure, showed strong differences in parental effort throughout the breeding season and between sexes. Thereby, males increased substantially their energetic requirements, due to the increased workload, while females spent most of the time on the nest. Furthermore, during critical phases of the breeding season, a low percentage of suitable hunting spots in eagles’ territories led them to increase their ranging behaviour in order to find food, with important consequences in energy consumption and mortality risk. Our results highlight the crucial role of males in raptor species exhibiting biparental care. Finally, we exemplify how biologging technologies are an adequate and objective method to study parental care in raptors as well as to get deeper insight into breeding ecology of birds in general.

Are parental care trade-offs in shorebirds driven by parental investment or sexual selection?

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 672-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. A. OLSON ◽  
T. J. WEBB ◽  
R. P. FRECKLETON ◽  
T. SZÉKELY
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Parental Investment ◽  
Trade Offs

Social monogamy, male–female relationships, and biparental care in wild titi monkeys (Callicebus discolor)

Primates ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Spence-Aizenberg ◽  
Anthony Di Fiore ◽  
Eduardo Fernandez-Duque
Keyword(s):  
Biparental Care ◽  
Social Monogamy ◽  
Female Relationships ◽  
Titi Monkeys

scholarly journals Description of the reproductive behavior of Symphysodon aequifasciatus (Cichlidae) in captivity

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas da Cruz MATTOS ◽  
Rafaela SCRENCI-RIBEIRO ◽  
Leonardo Demier CARDOSO ◽  
Manuel Vazquez Vidal JUNIOR
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Reproductive Behavior ◽  
Amazon Basin ◽  
Color Change ◽  
Biparental Care ◽  
Reproductive Process ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
Couple Formation

ABSTRACT The blue discus (Symphysodon aequifasciatus) is often sold for ornamental purposes. It is a neotropical cichlid from South America, which is native to the rivers of the Amazon basin of Brazil, Peru and Colombia. The purpose of this study was to characterize the reproductive behavior of S. aequifasciatus and identify features that can later be used by breeders to facilitate the handling and reproduction of this species in captivity. The experiment was divided into two stages: the first dealt with partner selection and couple formation to observe the behaviors of territoriality, pursuing, fleeing, biting, stay, protecting and cleaning of the substrate. The second stage documented mating behavior, nesting and parental care, to observe vibration, spawning, permanence with the offspring, aeration of eggs, cleaning of spawning, color change and shift-taking in parental care. The results of the study allowed identifying disputes for and establishment of territory, as well as the selection and cleaning of the substrate for spawning performed by both sexes. The parental care was observed from spawning in the substrate until the care for the larvae. It was found that the reproductive success of this species is closely linked to biparental care observed during the entire reproductive process and early stages of the hatchings.

Breast Cancer Stage Is Associated With Exceeding Target Price in the Oncology Care Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan B. Thomas ◽  
Vittorio Maio ◽  
Anna Chen ◽  
Seojin Park ◽  
Dexter Waters ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Academic Medical Center ◽  
Stage Iv ◽  
Cost Of Care ◽  
Mean Difference ◽  
Cancer Stage ◽  
Care Model ◽  
Target Price ◽  
Old Patients ◽  
Oncology Care

PURPOSE: To explore mean difference between Oncology Care Model (OCM) total costs and target price among breast cancer episodes by stage under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services OCM payment methodology. METHODS: Breast cancer episodes from OCM performance period 1-4 reconciliation reports (July 1, 2016-July 1, 2018) were linked with health record data from a large, academic medical center. Demographics, total cost of care (TCOC), and target price were measured by stage. Adjusted differences between TCOC and target price were compared across cancer stage using multivariable linear regression. RESULTS: A total of 539 episodes were evaluated from 252 unique patients with breast cancer, of which 235 (44%) were stage I, 124 (23%) stage II, 33 (6%) stage III, and 147 (27%) stage IV. About 37% of episodes exceeded target price. Mean differences from target price were –$1,782, $2,246, –$6,032, and $11,379 all in US dollars (USD) for stages I through IV, respectively. Stage IV episodes had highest mean TCOC ($44,210 USD) and mean target price ($32,831 USD) but also had higher rates of chemotherapy, inpatient admission, and novel therapy use. After adjusting for covariates, stage IV and ≥ 65-year-old patients had the highest mean difference from target price ($17,175 USD; 95% CI, $12,452 to $21,898 USD). CONCLUSION: Breast cancer episodes in older women with distant metastases most frequently exceeded target price, suggesting that target price did not adequately account for complexity of metastatic cancers. A metastatic adjustment introduced in PP7 represents a promising advancement in the target price methodology and an impact evaluation will be needed.

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