Revisiting non-offspring nursing: allonursing evolves when the costs are low

MacLeod, Kirsty J.; Lukas, Dieter

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2014.0378

Cited by 38 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Adoption in kangaroos thus appeared to incur few costs once young were permanently emerged from the pouch, but when adoptions were not reciprocal (43% of cases), the adoptive mother's own offspring died, indicating an unusually high cost [5]. That females were more likely to adopt in years with many females with large pouch young also supports the hypothesis of misdirected care, since accidental adoptions are more likely to occur under high-density breeding conditions [1].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

“…4 Disappeared at this age and presumably died. 5 Disappeared at this age and was later found dead. 6 Abandoned soon after capture.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instances of alloparenting, including nursing, food provisioning, guarding, carrying and grooming, however, have been reported in at least 120 mammalian species across most major orders, including marsupials (in captivity) [1]. Alloparenting has been hypothesised to result from (1) kin selection [2], (2) reciprocal altruism [3], (3) improved parental experience and/or (4) misdirected care [1,4], but allonursing in particular appears to evolve where costs are low [5]. Kin selection involves related females sharing parental duties, including the nursing of each other's young, as often occurs in communally breeding rodents [6] and carnivores [7] but it has also been invoked for adoption in an asocial sciurid [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Kinship and sociability in eastern grey kangaroos

King¹

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School of Biological Sciencesii Frontispiece: A family group of eastern grey kangaroos at the Wilsons Promontory National Park in February, 2010, consisting of (left to right) adult female #6 (carrying a 3-month-old pouch young daughter that became #223), adopted young-at-foot daughter #116 (still suckling at approximately 15 months) and sub-adult daughter #7 of approximately 26 months. Photo by Wendy J. King.iii Abstract Animal grouping patterns are generally shaped by ecological constraints such as resource distribution or predation risk. Population density often increases competition, so that life-history consequences of association patterns should be particularly evident at increased densities. This thesis seeks to quantify how kinship affects association patterns in a species with unstable social bonds at high density. I also aimed to measure individual variation in sociability and evaluate its fitness consequences. Eastern grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus) are gregarious herbivores, with a fission-fusion social system. I thus investigated how kinship and sex-age class affected behavioural and spatial associations in a high-density population of kangaroos at Wilsons Promontory National Park, Victoria.In Chapter 2, I examined relationships between individuals of different sex-age classes using halfweight indices (HWIs, which measure pairwise association strengths) and lagged association rates, and calculated six individual-based network measures. I found little social structure in the population. Mean HWIs were similar within and between different sex-age combinations (mean HWIs = 0.01 to 0.02). Individuals of all sex-age classes had preferred and avoided associates overall. Adult females showed a weak relationship (r = 0.05) between relatedness and HWIs, but this effect disappeared when controlling for geographic distance or spatial overlap between dyads.Lagged association rates decreased exponentially for adult males with adult females accompanied by young-at-foot in the breeding season. Most other lagged association rates decreased slightly in a linear fashion and few were constant. Although females without young-at-foot appeared to be more social than females with young-at foot, all associations among individual non-juvenile kangaroos were weak (mean HWI = 0.01). Sample size had strong positive effects on mean HWI and all six network measures (r = 0.40 to 0.66), which is more likely to occur in large populations where association strengths are generally low and individuals have many weak associations.I then combined observational data with genetic information to investigate sex-biased dispersal in Chapter 3. I found weak fine-scale genetic structure among adult females but none among adult males. Mean relatedness among adults was low (r = -0.01 to -0.03). Immature males moved away from their mothers at a younger age than did immature females. Although median distances of detected dispersals were 2-2.5 km for both sexes, only 6% of sub-adult females dispersed compared to 34% of sub-adult males. Adult fe...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

“…4 Disappeared at this age and presumably died. 5 Disappeared at this age and was later found dead. 6 Abandoned soon after capture.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Kinship and sociability in eastern grey kangaroos

King¹

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“…). Nonetheless, reciprocal allonursing was not influenced by relatedness (see MacLeod & Lukas ). Number of allonursing bouts received was not influenced by the number of allonursing bouts given or the interaction term between number of allonursing bouts given and relatedness, and there was no positive and strong correlation between the dyadic reciprocity index values and dyadic relatedness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Evidence of Reciprocal Allonursing in Reindeer, Rangifer tarandus

et al. 2014

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The nursing of non‐offspring is referred to as allonursing. Reciprocity is a hypothesized cause of allonursing, but previous studies have not strongly supported or found no evidence in support for this hypothesis. Biological market theory was applied to 25 reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) does and their calves to investigate allonursing reciprocity across bouts and within dyads and assess the diversity of allonursing partners. We also investigated whether variation in allonursing would be associated to relatedness within dyads. We recorded both the occurrence and the duration of 1027 successful allonursing solicitations. All does allonursed, and only three of the 25 calves were not observed being allonursed. Throughout the study, 234 allonursing dyadic pairs were observed. Does allonursed the calves of several does, but allonursing was not distributed evenly among all potential partners. Twenty does were members of at least 1 dyad with a high degree of reciprocity based on the number of allonursing bouts exchanged within the dyad. We found evidence of both relative and absolute allonursing reciprocity at the group level. Across bouts and within dyads, the reciprocal allonursing indexes varied greatly both for frequency and for duration, with an average tendency towards unidirectionality. Evidence of strong reciprocity within dyads was found in 32 dyads for number of allonursing bouts and in 25 dyads for duration of allonursing bouts. Across bouts and within dyads, the number of allonursing bouts received was not influenced by relatedness, allonursing bouts given or absolute rank difference. Allonursing was not interchanged for rank‐related benefits. Our results provide evidence of reciprocal allonursing at the group level, across bouts and within dyads, and reciprocal allonursing among chosen partners. Our results point to the usefulness of applying the biological market theory to allonursing and of considering allonursing as a tradable commodity, traded for itself, among chosen partners.

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“…Total reproductive investment in filial offspring for monotocous species like giraffes is high (MacLeod & Lukas, 2014), and lactation is more energetically costly than other types of parental care (König, 1997). Giraffe calves grow quickly to escape predation (Foster & Dagg, 1971).…”

Section: Re Sults and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%