The evolution of parental cooperation in birds

Remeš, Vladimír; Freckleton, Robert P.; Tökölyi, Jácint; Liker, András; Székely, Tamás

doi:10.1073/pnas.1512599112

Cited by 79 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Thus, when males are in abundance and surrounded by competitors, they should reduce mating effort [37]. The ASR has since been shown to influence the coevolution of patterns of care and competition through varying sex-specific intensities of sexual selection both across and within species [8,14,[38][39][40]. These findings are in-line with mating market theory from the social sciences that also takes a frequencydependent approach to behaviour [41,42].…”

Section: Theoretical Foundationsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Adult sex ratios and reproductive strategies: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies

Schacht

Kramer

Székely

et al. 2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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It is increasingly recognized that the relative proportion of potential mates to competitors in a population impacts a range of sex-specific behaviours and in particular mating and reproduction. However, while the adult sex ratio (ASR) has long been recognized as an important link between demography and behaviour, this relationship remains understudied. Here, we introduce the first inter-disciplinary collection of research on the causes and consequences of variation in the ASR in human and animal societies. This important topic is relevant to a wide audience of both social and biological scientists due to the central role that the relative number of males to females in a population plays for the evolution of, and contemporary variation in, sex roles across groups, species and higher taxa. The articles in this theme issue cover research on ASR across a variety of taxa and topics. They offer critical re-evaluations of theoretical foundations within both evolutionary and non-evolutionary fields, and propose innovative methodological approaches, present new empirical examples of behavioural consequences of ASR variation and reveal that the ASR plays a major role in determining population viability, especially in small populations and species with labile sex determination. This introductory paper puts the contributions of the theme issue into a broader context, identifies general trends across the literature and formulates directions for future research. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Adult sex ratios and reproductive decisions: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies'.

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Section: Theoretical Foundationsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Adult sex ratios and reproductive strategies: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies

Schacht

Kramer

Székely

et al. 2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Further, the rarer sex is expected to provide less parental care, because it has more opportunities to find additional mating partners than the more abundant sex [6,7]. This argument is supported by recent comparative studies in shorebirds [8], coucals [9] and birds in general ([10], see also the discussion by Székely et al . [11]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…[11]). Finally, environmental conditions influence parental care decisions, because a low or unpredictable food supply or otherwise harsh conditions typically promote parental cooperation and more equal sex roles in parental care ([4,12], but see [10]). Favourable environmental conditions with a high abundance of food and a climate with benign temperatures, on the other hand, may enable a single parent to successfully raise all offspring and free the other parent to look for additional mating partners [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex roles, parental care and offspring growth in two contrasting coucal species

et al. 2016

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The decision to provide parental care is often associated with trade-offs, because resources allocated to parental care typically cannot be invested in self-maintenance or mating. In most animals, females provide more parental care than males, but the reason for this pattern is still debated in evolutionary ecology. To better understand sex differences in parental care and its consequences, we need to study closely related species where the sexes differ in offspring care. We investigated parental care in relation to offspring growth in two closely related coucal species that fundamentally differ in sex roles and parental care, but live in the same food-rich habitat with a benign climate and have a similar breeding phenology. Incubation patterns differed and uniparental male black coucals fed their offspring two times more often than female and male white-browed coucals combined. Also, white-browed coucals had more ‘off-times’ than male black coucals, during which they perched and preened. However, these differences in parental care were not reflected in offspring growth, probably because white-browed coucals fed their nestlings a larger proportion of frogs than insects. A food-rich habitat with a benign climate may be a necessary, but—perhaps unsurprisingly—is not a sufficient factor for the evolution of uniparental care. In combination with previous results (Goymann et al. 2015 J. Evol. Biol. 28, 1335–1353 (doi:10.1111/jeb.1265710.1111/jeb.12657)), these data suggest that white-browed coucals may cooperate in parental care, because they lack opportunities to become polygamous rather than because both parents were needed to successfully raise all offspring. Our case study supports recent theory suggesting that permissive environmental conditions in combination with a particular life history may induce sexual selection in females. A positive feedback loop among sexual selection, body size and adult sex-ratio may then stabilize reversed sex roles in competition and parental care.

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“…For example, malebiased avian populations tend to have polyandrous mating systems and male-biased parental provisioning (13). Although the theory linking ASR to breeding system is relatively new, there are already supporting studies: parental cooperation is associated with an unbiased ASR in birds (14), whereas ASR is a strong predictor of sex-specific sexual activity and divorce rates in humans (15,16).…”

Section: Adult Sex Ratio (Asr) Is a Central Concept In Population Biomentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-specific early survival drives adult sex ratio bias in snowy plovers and impacts mating system and population growth

Eberhart-Phillips

Küpper

Miller

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Adult sex ratio (ASR) is a central concept in population biologyand a key factor in sexual selection, but why do most demographic models ignore sex biases? Vital rates often vary between the sexes and across life history, but their relative contributions to ASR variation remain poorly understood-an essential step to evaluate sex ratio theories in the wild and inform conservation. Here, we combine structured two-sex population models with individual-based mark-recapture data from an intensively monitored polygamous population of snowy plovers. We show that a strongly male-biased ASR (0.63) is primarily driven by sexspecific survival of juveniles rather than adults or dependent offspring. This finding provides empirical support for theories of unbiased sex allocation when sex differences in survival arise after the period of parental investment. Importantly, a conventional model ignoring sex biases significantly overestimated population viability. We suggest that sex-specific population models are essential to understand the population dynamics of sexual organisms: reproduction and population growth are most sensitive to perturbations in survival of the limiting sex. Overall, our study suggests that sex-biased early survival may contribute toward mating system evolution and population persistence, with implications for both sexual selection theory and biodiversity conservation.ASR | Charadrius nivosus | mark-recapture | sex allocation | two-sex matrix model

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The evolution of parental cooperation in birds

Cited by 79 publications

References 70 publications

Adult sex ratios and reproductive strategies: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies

Adult sex ratios and reproductive strategies: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies

Sex roles, parental care and offspring growth in two contrasting coucal species

Sex-specific early survival drives adult sex ratio bias in snowy plovers and impacts mating system and population growth

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