Population level consequences of facultatively cooperative behaviour in a stochastic environment

Busana, Michela; Childs, Dylan Z.; Burke, Terry; Komdeur, Jan; Richardson, David S.; Dugdale, Hannah L.

doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13618

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…Whilst we found no effect of helping experience on dominant breeding position acquisition, we did find that helpers became dominant breeders later in life than those that did not help. This result is consistent with previous studies on female Seychelles warblers (Busana et al, 2022) and the lance-tailed manakin (Duval et al 2013). If individuals spend time helping prior to gaining a dominant breeding position, it follows that they become a dominant breeder at an older age compared to individuals that did not help and, instead, acquired dominance at their earliest opportunity.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…We found that experience as a helper had no effect on whether an individual acquired a dominant breeding position in either males or females. At first sight, this finding conflicts with a previous study on the Seychelles warbler, which found that female helpers were less likely to acquire a dominant breeding position than female non-helpers (Busana et al, 2022). However, Busana et al…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 65%

“…With genetic parentage established, we can now test whether any initial reproductive benefits of having helping experience translate into longer-term fitness benefits. Busana et al (2022) found that female helpers were less likely to obtain a dominant breeding position and had similar LRS to nonhelpers. However, Busana et al (2022) did not analyse male helpers, and co-breeders and helpers were not separated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…The limited number of studies considering the longer-term fitness benefits of helping is likely because longitudinal data are required; life-long data from birth to death are needed, which many studies cannot obtain due to system ecology. The few studies that have considered the effect of helping on LRS, such as those on the lance-tailed manakin (Chiroxiphia lanceolata;DuVal, 2013), longtailed tit (Maccoll and Hatchwell, 2004), and female Seychelles warblers (Busana et al, 2022) have shown that helping has no effect on the LRS of helpers compared to non-helpers. Further work is needed to determine whether there are longer-term fitness consequences of having helping experience, and at what life history stages these effects are seen.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Busana et al (2022) did not analyse male helpers, and co-breeders and helpers were not separated. In addition, whilst Busana et al (2022) considered the effect of helping on female LRS, they did not consider the number of offspring produced after acquiring dominance, so did not address the skills hypothesis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The impact of helping on helper life-history and fitness in a cooperatively breeding bird

Chesterton¹,

Sparks²,

Burke³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Cooperative breeding occurs when helpers provide alloparental care to the offspring of a breeding pair. One hypothesis of why helping occurs is that helpers gain valuable experience (skills) that may increase their own future reproductive success. However, research typically focuses on the effect of helping on short-term measures of reproductive success. Fewer studies have considered how helping affects long-term fitness measures. Here, we analyse how helping experience affects key breeding and fitness-related parameters in the Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis). Importantly, we control for females that have co-bred, as they have experience with direct reproduction. Helping experience alone had no impact on any of the metrics considered, except that helpers had an older age at first dominance. Females that had co-bred had longer dominant tenures, produced more recruits as dominant breeders and had a higher lifetime reproductive success than females that had never co-bred. Our results suggest that helping experience alone does not increase direct fitness in Seychelles warblers and highlights the importance of separating the effects of helping from co-breeding. Our findings also emphasise the importance of analysing the effect of helping at various life-history stages, as higher short-term fitness may not translate to an overall increase in lifetime fitness.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 65%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The impact of helping on helper life-history and fitness in a cooperatively breeding bird

Chesterton¹,

Sparks²,

Burke³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Testing the environmental buffering hypothesis of cooperative breeding in the Seychelles warbler

et al. 2023

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Species are facing environmental challenges caused by rapidly changing environments. Globally, extreme weather events, like droughts or extreme rainfall, are increasing in frequency. Natural selection usually acts slowly, while adaptations through phenotypic plasticity are limited. Therefore, organisms may utilise other mechanisms to cope with such rapid change. Cooperative breeding is hypothesised to be one such mechanism, as helpers could increase survival probabilities of offspring, especially in harsh years. Rainfall is a cue for onset of breeding in many tropical species, to ensure young are born when food abundance is highest. Using 21 years of data, we investigate the effect of rainfall on social behaviour and life history in the insectivorous Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis), a facultative cooperative breeder. We found that low rainfall is associated with reduced reproductive output and possibly with decreased survival. However, there were no statistical differences in response between groups with helpers, groups with only non-helping subordinates, and breeding pairs without subordinates. With low rainfall, more sons (the sex less likely to help) were produced, and those subordinate males already present were less likely to help. Thus, in contrast to expectations, cooperative breeding does not seem to buffer against harsh environments in Seychelles warblers, indicating that group living may be costly and thus not a mechanism for coping with changing environments. Our study showed that the interaction between the environment and life histories, including social behaviour, is complex, but that this interaction is important to consider when studying the impact of changing environments on species survival.

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