Parental Care Flashcards
*What are life history traits?
traits that involved with growth, reproduction, and survivorship
*What is parental care / parental investment?
parental care = behaviors of an adult that enhance offspring survival
parental investment = parental care PLUS other investment in offspring
How are life history traits and parental care/parental investment related?
What is meant by trade-off? Why don’t we see “Darwinian Demons” (organisms that
reproduce directly after being born, produce infinitely many offspring, and live indefinitely) in the real world, even though they would be favored by selection?
How is the offspring size/number tradeoff optimized in terms of fitness? Why might a
female invests less in her offspring than the amount that would maximize the offspring’s
fitness?
What is the difference between r-selected and K-selected life histories? Under what
conditions would we expect to see one vs. the other?
How are parental care behaviors regulated? (i.e. back to ultimate vs. proximate…)
What are the potential benefits to males vs. females of providing parental care? Are they different? (And if so, why?)
What are the relative frequencies of female-only care vs. male-only care vs. bi-parental
care in various taxa? (Don’t need specific numbers but general trends.)
How can we predict/explain which sex should provide the higher level of parental care in
different taxa?
What is parent-offspring conflict? How/Why does it arise?
What is sibling conflict? How does it arise?
What is siblicide? Differentiate between indirect and direct siblicide and facultative vs.
obligate siblicide.
What factors would lead to increased vs. decreased incidence/intensity of sibling rivalry or siblicide?
What role do parents play in sibling conflict? How can they increase or decrease its
intensity? Why / when might they be favored to increase sibling conflict? To decrease it?
Why might animals provide parental care towards offspring that aren’t theirs?
What is brood parasitism? Differentiate between conspecific and heterospecific, and between facultative and obligate. What are the fitness consequences for the parasite? For the host?
