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Animal Behaviour BIOL21432 > L7 - Parental Care > Flashcards

L7 - Parental Care Flashcards

1
Q

Name 7 environmental hazards for offspring

A
  • Predation
  • Hypoxia
  • Temperature
  • Food shortages
  • Parasites
  • Pathogens
  • Desiccation
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2
Q

What is parental care?

A

Behaviour that increases fitness of offspring (and is likely to have originated/maintained for this function)

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3
Q

What is parental investment?

A

Behaviour that increases offspring fitness at the cost of a parent’s ability to reproduce in the future

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4
Q

What are the 7 types of parental care?

A
  • Provisioning of gametes
  • Oviposition site selection
  • Nest building and burrowing
  • Egg/ offspring attendance
  • Egg/ offspring brooding
  • Food provisioning
  • Care after nutritional dependence
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5
Q

What is provisioning of gametes?

A

Provisioning of energy and nutrients (e.g. proteins and lipids)

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6
Q

What advantage do larger eggs give?

A

Offspring have greater nutrient reserves at hatching

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7
Q

In some insects, what do females do after birthing eggs?

A

Coat eggs with defensive secretions

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8
Q

What is oviposition

A

The act or process of depositing or laying eggs, especially by means of an ovipositor (tube-like organ used to lay eggs in specific places)

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9
Q

What is oviposition site selection?

A

Non-random egg laying site

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10
Q

Give examples of oviposition site selection

A

Birds’ nests, choice of spawning site in fish and amphibians (external fertilisers)

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11
Q

Give examples of materials used to build nests

A

Mud, plant material, silk, mucus

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12
Q

What are three possible reasons for a parent to stay attending to egg/ offspring?

A

Protection from predators, fanning, site maintenance

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13
Q

What site maintenance does the male African bullfrog do?

A

Will dig channels between bodies of water to make sure the eggs do not dry out, prevent desiccation

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14
Q

What is egg/ offspring brooding?

A

Carrying the eggs or offspring - a mobile form of egg/ offspring attendance

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15
Q

Describe different examples of food provision

A

Parents alert offspring to food location
Regurgitation of food
Provision of actual food
Production of specialised food source e.g milk
Matriphagy - when offspring eat mother

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16
Q

What are two examples of care after nutritional independence?

A
  • Winter flocks of Bewick’s swans: parents assist offspring in competition for food
  • Burying beetles: larvae nutritionally independent at 72 hours, females remain with offspring for 48 more
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17
Q

Name and describer the three levels of care needed by offspring?

A
  • Superprecocial: capable of independent
    living soon after birth
  • Precocial: relatively mature / mobile at birth/hatching
  • Altricial: young immature at
    birth/hatching
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18
Q

What are the costs to parental care?

A
  • Increased predation risk (e.g. male pipefish more conspicuous)
  • Physiological costs: male cotton top tamarin can lose about 11% of body mass in 3 months following birth
  • Cost of raising a child in the UK is >£225K
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19
Q

What are the benefits of parental care?

A
  • Improved offspring survival
  • Improved offspring quality
20
Q

Why do the costs and benefits of parental care differ between species?

A

Ecology

21
Q

What factors can help explain the diversity in parental care?

A
  • Parental care can differ between sexes
  • Ecological factors (relationship between species and environment)
22
Q

Name and describe the 3 types of “parental who cares”

A
  • Maternal care: care provided by female
  • Paternal care: care provided by male
  • Bi-parental care: care provided by both parents
23
Q

Name and describe the 4 types of mating systems

A
  • Monogamy: Male & female form pair bond (can be short-term or long-term)
  • Polygyny: Male mates with several females; females mate with a single male
  • Polyandry: Female mates with multiple males
  • Promiscuity: Both male and female mate several times with different individuals (also polygamy)
24
Q

What type of parental care (i.e who the carer is) is each mating system associated with?

A

Monogamy = bi-parental care
Polygyny = maternal care
Polyandry = paternal

25
Q

What is oviparous?

A

Producing young by means of eggs which are hatched after they have been laid by the parent e.g as in birds.

26
Q

Give examples of parental care for birds

A

Nest building, incubating eggs, predator defence of eggs and chicks, feeding chicks

27
Q

What percentage of birds have bi-parental, maternal, paternal care?

A

90% bi-parental, 8% maternal, 2% paternal

28
Q

Which category do the majority of bird chicks fall into:
- Superprecocial
- Precocial
- Altricial

A

Altricial

29
Q

What is argued to be the primitive form of bird parental care? Give two pieces of evidence

A

Paternal
- Fossil record
- Primitive birds have paternal care

30
Q

Which sex always provides care in mammals?

A

Females

31
Q

Describe monotremes and marsupials. Give an example

A
  • Monotremes: egg incubation in an abdominal pouch, no nipples e.g platypus
  • Marsupials: altricial young cared for in a pouch e.g kangaroo
32
Q

In what percentage of mammal species do the males assist with parental care

A

Around 10%

33
Q

What type of parental care do the majority of fish have?

A

No parental care

34
Q

What is more common in fish - paternal or maternal care?

A

Paternal

35
Q

What does natural selection favour?

A

Favours the evolution of behaviour that will maximize lifetime reproductive success

36
Q

How does parental investment explain why it is normally females providing parental care?

A

Sex that invests less in gametes and embryos is less concerned about what happens to offspring after mating

37
Q

How does paternity certainty explain why it is normally females providing parental care?

A

Males are less sure than females that the offspring is theirs

38
Q

What theory explain the fact that paternal care is more common in fish?

A

The Association theory

39
Q

What is the desertion opportunity theory?

A

Whichever parent has the opportunity to desert the offspring first will.

40
Q

What is the association theory?

A
  • Association with embryos preadapts a sex for parental care
  • Internal fertilisers: female association with embryo > embryo retention and live birth > maternal care
  • External fertilisers: eggs laid in male’s territory > defence of territory > defence of eggs and young
41
Q

Give an example of paternity certainty affecting parental care

A

Bluegill sunfish:
- have sneaker male phenotypes
- sneaker males look like females and use this to fertilise eggs without the male, who’s territory the eggs are in
- when a sneaker male is placed next to male’s territory the original male gives less parental care

42
Q

What drives maternal care?

A
  • Internal fertilisation gives male opportunity to desert
  • Sexual selection/parental investment: male gains more by deserting: his Lifetime Reproductive Success depends more on number of matings
43
Q

What drives biparental care?

A
  • Constraints on offspring survival (predation, harsh environment etc)
  • If offspring survival is low when only one parent cares this can drive the evolution of biparental care
  • Can be simultaneous or sequential care
  • Linked to sexual selection: parents cooperate more when sexual selection is not intense and sex ratio is not skewed
44
Q

What is brood parasitism?

A
  • Forced adoption
  • Parasite lays eggs in host’s nest and offspring are cared for by host parent(s)
  • Famous examples in birds (~1% of birds) but also occurs in other taxa (insects, fish)
45
Q

What bird its adoption most common and in what percentage of them does it occur?

A

Common Eider - 47%

Animal Behaviour BIOL21432 (22 decks)

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