Chapter 9
October 18th, 2015
The Evolution of Parental Care
Key to explaining the diversity in parental behavior lies with the cost-benefit approach.
Both sexes for songbirds when parenting often bring food to their helpless young offspring in a nest.
While female are so engaged, she may not be able to gather food freely and so she would grow as rapidly then she might otherwise, this is an especially damaging outcome for these species in which female fecundity increases exponentially with increasing body size for females.
Parent songbirds adjust their devotion to their young in line with the costs and benefits of their coming and goings during feeding their young.
The Cost-Benefit Analysis of Parental Care
The costs …show more content…
Why Accept a Parasite’s Egg?
Acceptance of the parasite egg is also more likely to be adaptive when the host is small species unable to grasp and remove the larger parasitic bird that is within their nest.
The maternal sacrifices made by some species of treehoppers are less dramatic but still substantial as the females, never the males, stand watch over their eggs day and night to protect them against predatory or parasitic insects that would destroy their broods.
Even if host birds could throw out or cover up a brood parasite’s eggs without making mistakes, the parasite might make this option unprofitable by returning to the nest to check whether its egg had been harmed; if so, the parasite might retaliate against its host.
The Puzzle of Parental Favoritism
The Darwinian puzzle is the indifference shown by some animals to lethal aggression among offspring.
It could be part of the parental strategy to let offspring themselves identify which individuals are most likely to provide an eventual genetic payoff to the parents that take care of …show more content…
Parent of a murderous offspring loses because instead of six grand offspring, it has just the five as a result of the successful siblicial offspring’s reproduction is an example of parent-offspring conflict.
Parent-offspring conflict is a concept developed by Bob Trivers after he realized that some actions can advance the fitness of an offspring while reducing the reproductive success of its parent.
Parent-offspring conflict is also known as the clash of interests that occurs when parents can gain fitness by withholding parental care or resources from some offspring in order to invest in others now or later, even though the deprived offspring would gain more fitness by receipt of parental care or resources within an environment,
Parental Behavior in Relation to Offspring Value
The individual’s limited amount of time, energy, and risk-taking that they can devote to any given offspring is known as parental effort.
Key to explaining the diversity in parental behavior lies with the cost-benefit