Parental facilitation: parent-offspring relations in communally breeding birds

Brown, Jerram L.; Brown, Esther R.

doi:10.1007/bf00299620

Cited by 86 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…We suggest that the length of time during which nepotistic tolerance behaviour can enhance offspring fitness, more than it reduces the parent's own fitness, is of crucial importance for the evolution of delayed dispersal and of more complex social interactions among kin. While models to account for associations among kin have focused on access to habitat (Selander 1964;Brown 1969;Emlen 1982;Stacey & Ligon 1987, 1991; but see Brown & Brown 1984), our approach supports models that emphasize the coevolution of altruistic behaviour and dispersal (Ekman & Rosander 1992;Perrin & Lehmann 2001;Kokko & Ekman 2002).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Why offspring delay dispersal: experimental evidence for a role of parental tolerance

Ekman

Griesser

2002

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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Approximately 3% of all bird species live in families based on a prolonged parent-offspring association. Formation of family groups often appears to be associated with various constraints on the possibilities of independent reproduction for the offspring. However, delayed dispersal is not the only alternative for offspring that defer reproduction. To account for the formation of a family group it is also necessary to explain why non-dispersing offspring forego the alternative options to join other groups as 'extra birds' or to become 'floaters' and roam between territories. We removed fathers from Siberian jay Perisoreus infaustus family groups to test the proposal that nepotistic parental tolerance gives the natal territory a special value for the offspring, which they cannot find elsewhere and that makes them stay. In this species, parents are more tolerant of their retained offspring than towards immigrant extra birds. In response to the removal of fathers, retained offspring dispersed, whereas there was no similar response among the unrelated extra birds. Retained offspring, however, left only after despotic immigrant α-males replaced removed fathers, indicating that the presence of fathers is an essential motive for offspring to delay their dispersal. By blocking immigrant and unrelated males from becoming α-males and by being tolerant themselves, fathers provide a 'safe haven' in the natal territory where retained offspring can avail themselves of available resources without any, or only mild, competitive interference.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Why offspring delay dispersal: experimental evidence for a role of parental tolerance

Ekman

Griesser

2002

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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“…In particular, group augmentation has to be explored in much more detail if we are to understand fully the evolutionary stability of investments in the system under study. Other concepts proposed in the cooperative breeding literature may also be analysed in the same way in the future, including task sharing (Taborsky, 1994;Lacey and Sherman, 1997;Clutton-Brock et al, 2003;Arnold et al, 2005), redirected helping (Emlen, 1982;Dickinson and Hatchwell, 2004), strategic between group dispersal (Bergmüller et al, 2005a), load lightening (Crick, 1992;Heinsohn, 2004), kinship deceit (Connor and Curry, 1995), parental facilitation (of territorial inheritance) (Brown and Brown, 1984), skill acquisition (Brown, 1987;Komdeur, 1996) and between group competition (Brooke and Hartley, 1995;Cockburn, 1998).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating cooperative breeding into theoretical concepts of cooperation

Bergmüller

Johnstone

Russell

et al. 2007

Behavioural Processes

210

232

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In cooperative breeding systems, some individuals help to raise offspring that are not their own. While early explanations for such altruistic behaviour were predominantly based on kin selection, recent evidence suggests that direct benefits may be important in the maintenance of cooperation. To date, however, discussions of cooperative breeding have made little reference to more general theories of cooperation between unrelated individuals (while these theories rarely address cooperative breeding). Here, we attempt to integrate the two fields. We identify four key questions that can be used to categorise different mechanisms for the maintenance of cooperative behaviour: (1) whether or not individuals invest in others; (2) whether or not this initial investment elicits a return investment by the beneficiary; (3) whether the interaction is direct, i.e. between two partners, or indirect (involving third parties) and (4) whether only actions that increase the fitness of the partner or also fitness reducing actions (punishment) are involved in the interaction. Asking these questions with regards to concepts in the literature on cooperative breeding, we found that (a) it is often straightforward to relate these concepts to general mechanisms of cooperation, but that (b) a single term (such as 'pay-to-stay', 'group augmentation' or 'prestige') may sometimes subsume two or more distinct mechanisms, and that (c) at least some mechanisms that are thought to be important in cooperative breeding systems have remained largely unexplored in the theoretical literature on the evolution of cooperation. Future theoretical models should incorporate asymmetries in power and pay off structure caused for instance by dominance hierarchies or partner choice, and the use of N-player games. The key challenges for both theoreticians and empiricists will be to integrate the hitherto disparate fields and to disentangle the parallel effects of kin and non-kin based mechanisms of cooperation.

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“…Subordinates may still stand to gain from group membership under these circumstances, as acquiring breeding positions by queuing may be more e¤cient than the attempt to establish a new territory (either because dispersing individuals face high mortality risks or because habitat saturation prevents their breeding or forces them to occupy secondary habitats). At the same time, the dominant may bene¢t from their presence either directly by improved survival (Rood 1990), or if they are related, may gain indirect bene¢ts by tolerating their presence (Brown & Brown 1984;Rowley & Russell 1990;Ekman et al 1994;. Alternatively, the dominant may simply be unable to exclude unwelcome subordinates (Higashi & Yamamura 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social queuing in animal societies: a dynamic model of reproductive skew

Kokko

Johnstone

1999

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

299

230

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Previously developed models of reproductive skew have overlooked one of the main reasons why subordinates might remain in a group despite restricted opportunities to breed: the possibility of social queuing, i.e. acquiring dominant status in the future. Here, we present a dynamic ESS model of skew in animal societies that incorporates both immediate and future ¢tness consequences of the decisions taken by group members, based on their probability of surviving from one season to the next (when postbreeding survival probabilities drop to zero, our analysis reduces to the model produced by Reeve and Ratnieks in 1993, which considered only a single breeding season). This allows us to compare the delayed bene¢ts of philopatry and the immediate opportunities for independent breeding. We show that delayed bene¢ts greatly reduce the need for dominants to o¡er reproductive concessions to retain subordinates peacefully in the group. Moreover, this e¡ect is strong enough that di¡erences in survival have a much greater impact on the group structure than di¡erences in other parameters, such as relatedness. When the possibility of acceding to dominant status is taken into account, groups where the dominant completely monopolizes reproduction can be stable, even if they consist of unrelated individuals, and even if subordinates have a reasonably high probability of winning a ¢ght for dominance. Finally, we show that stable groups are possible even if association leads to a decrease in current productivity. Subordinates may still stand to gain from group membership under these circumstances, as acquiring breeding positions by queuing may be more e¤cient than the attempt to establish a new territory. At the same time, the dominant may be unable to exclude unwelcome subordinates, may enjoy increased survival when they are present, or may gain indirect bene¢ts from allowing relatives to stay and queue for dominance. We conclude that reproductive skew in animal groups, ranging from eusocial insect colonies to mating aggregations (leks), will be strongly in£uenced by the future prospects of group members.

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Parental facilitation: parent-offspring relations in communally breeding birds

Cited by 86 publications

References 26 publications

Why offspring delay dispersal: experimental evidence for a role of parental tolerance

Why offspring delay dispersal: experimental evidence for a role of parental tolerance

Integrating cooperative breeding into theoretical concepts of cooperation

Social queuing in animal societies: a dynamic model of reproductive skew

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