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The evolution of parental care in stochastic environments
1Mathematical Ecology Research Group, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. michael.bonsall@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Journal of Evolutionary Biology
|January 26, 2011
Summary
Parental care can evolve in variable environments. Environmental changes affecting survival rates impact care
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary Biology
- Behavioral Ecology
- Environmental Science
Background:
- Parental care is crucial for understanding reproductive strategies.
- Environmental variability influences life-history traits and evolutionary outcomes.
- The costs and benefits of parental care are central to reproductive allocation decisions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the evolution of parental care strategies in stochastic environments.
- To analyze the impact of environmental variability on the costs and benefits of parental care.
- To determine how life-history trade-offs influence the selection of parental care levels.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a life-history trait trade-off framework.
- Modeled parental care in stochastic environments with varying adult/egg death rates, reproductive rates, and carrying capacity.
- Employed a fitness measure suitable for variable conditions.
Main Results:
- Parental care can evolve across diverse life-history traits in variable environments.
- Environmental variability in adult or egg death rates can alter the fitness of parental care, depending on care costs.
- Variability in carrying capacity or reproductive rate had minimal impact on care-associated fitness.
- Increased parental care can enhance fitness gains in fluctuating environments.
Conclusions:
- Environmental variability, affected life-history traits, and care costs interact to shape the evolution of parental care.
- The level of parental care selected for is contingent on these interacting factors in variable environments.
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