Parental Care and Predation Risk in Fish-Defend, Desert or Devour

Parents make tradeoffs between care for offspring and themselves. Such a tradeoff should be reduced in biparental species, when both parents provide parental care. However, in some biparental species, the contribution of one sex varies greatly over time or between pairs. How this variation in parental care influences self-maintenance rhythms is often unclear. In this study, we used continuous video recording to investigate the daily rhythms of sleep and feather preening in incubating females of the Northern Lapwing ( Vanellus vanellus), a wader with a highly variable male contribution to incubation. We found that the female’s sleep frequency peaked after sunrise and before sunset but was low in the middle of the day and especially during the night. In contrast, preening frequency followed a 24-h rhythm and peaked in the middle of the day. Taken together, incubating females rarely slept or preened during the night, when the predation pressure was highest. Moreover, the sleeping and preening rhythms were modulated by the male contribution to incubation. Females that were paired with more contributing males showed a stronger sleep rhythm but also a weaker preening rhythm. If more incubating males also invest more in nest guarding and deterring daylight predators, their females may afford more sleep on the nest during the day and preen more when they are off the nest. Whether the lack of sleep in females paired with less caregiving males has fitness consequences awaits future investigation.

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Sex‐specific effects of predation risk on parental care in a sexually dichromatic Neotropical songbird

Journal of Avian Biology ◽

10.1111/jav.02483 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 51 (12) ◽

Author(s):

Pedro Z. de Moraes ◽

Pedro Diniz ◽

Regina H. Macedo

Keyword(s):

Parental Care ◽

Predation Risk ◽

Specific Effects

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Plasticity of parental care under the risk of predation: how much should parents reduce care?

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2013.0154 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 20130154 ◽

Cited By ~ 67

Author(s):

Cameron K. Ghalambor ◽

Susana I. Peluc ◽

Thomas E. Martin

Keyword(s):

Parental Care ◽

Predation Risk ◽

Perceived Risk ◽

Nest Predation ◽

Behavioural Plasticity ◽

Risk Of Predation ◽

Theoretical Predictions ◽

The Mean ◽

Parental Provisioning ◽

Nest Predator

Predation can be an important agent of natural selection shaping parental care behaviours, and can also favour behavioural plasticity. Parent birds often decrease the rate that they visit the nest to provision offspring when perceived risk is high. Yet, the plasticity of such responses may differ among species as a function of either their relative risk of predation, or the mean rate of provisioning. Here, we report parental provisioning responses to experimental increases in the perceived risk of predation. We tested responses of 10 species of bird in north temperate Arizona and subtropical Argentina that differed in their ambient risk of predation. All species decreased provisioning rates in response to the nest predator but not to a control. However, provisioning rates decreased more in species that had greater ambient risk of predation on natural nests. These results support theoretical predictions that the extent of plasticity of a trait that is sensitive to nest predation risk should vary among species in accordance with predation risk.

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Correlated evolution of parental care with dichromatism, colour, and patterns in anurans

10.1101/2021.04.11.439298 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Seshadri K S ◽

Maria Thaker

Keyword(s):

Parental Care ◽

Predation Risk ◽

Dominant Strategy ◽

The Other ◽

Sexual Dichromatism ◽

Strong Correlations ◽

Body Colour ◽

Selection Pressures ◽

Care Giving ◽

Fitness Benefits

Parental care is widespread among vertebrates, with clear fitness benefits. Caring parents however incur costs that include higher predation risk. Anurans have among the most diverse forms of parental care, and we test whether the occurrence of care is associated with morphology that minimizes predation risk. We first examine whether parental care co-occurs with sexual dichromatism, testing the hypothesis that when one sex is conspicuous, the other is cryptically patterned and cares for the young. From our phylogenetic comparative analyses of 988 anurans distributed globally, we find that parental care is less likely to co-occur with dichromatism, irrespective of the caring sex. We then examine whether colour gradients and patterns that enhance crypticity are associated with the occurrence of parental care. We found that species with male-only care were more likely to have Bars-Bands, but contrary to our expectation, other colours (Green-Brown, Red-Blue-Black, Yellow) and patterns (Plain, Spots, Mottled-Patches) were not associated with caregiving behaviours. The lack of strong correlations between dorsal morphology and parental care suggests that crypticity is not the dominant strategy to minimise predation risk for care-giving anurans, and that the evolution of body colour and parental care are driven by independent selection pressures.

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