Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The Study of Mammalian Cooperative Breeding
- 2 The Bioenergetics of Parental Behavior and the Evolution of Alloparental Care in Marmosets and Tamarins
- 3 Proximate Regulation of Singular Breeding in Callitrichid Primates
- 4 Cooperative Breeding, Reproductive Suppression, and Body Mass in Canids
- 5 Hormonal and Experiential Factors in the Expression of Social and Parental Behavior in Canids
- 6 Variation in Reproductive Suppression among Dwarf Mongooses: Interplay between Mechanisms and Evolution
- 7 Dynamic Optimization and Cooperative Breeding: An Evaluation of Future Fitness Effects
- 8 Examination of Alternative Hypotheses for Cooperative Breeding in Rodents
- 9 The Psychobiological Basis of Cooperative Breeding in Rodents
- 10 Cooperative Breeding in Naked Mole-Rats: Implications for Vertebrate and Invertebrate Sociality
- 11 The Physiology of a Reproductive Dictatorship: Regulation of Male and Female Reproduction by a Single Breeding Female in Colonies of Naked Mole-Rats
- 12 Factors Influencing the Occurrence of Communal Care in Plural Breeding Mammals
- 13 A Bird's-Eye View of Mammalian Cooperative Breeding
- Index
13 - A Bird's-Eye View of Mammalian Cooperative Breeding
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The Study of Mammalian Cooperative Breeding
- 2 The Bioenergetics of Parental Behavior and the Evolution of Alloparental Care in Marmosets and Tamarins
- 3 Proximate Regulation of Singular Breeding in Callitrichid Primates
- 4 Cooperative Breeding, Reproductive Suppression, and Body Mass in Canids
- 5 Hormonal and Experiential Factors in the Expression of Social and Parental Behavior in Canids
- 6 Variation in Reproductive Suppression among Dwarf Mongooses: Interplay between Mechanisms and Evolution
- 7 Dynamic Optimization and Cooperative Breeding: An Evaluation of Future Fitness Effects
- 8 Examination of Alternative Hypotheses for Cooperative Breeding in Rodents
- 9 The Psychobiological Basis of Cooperative Breeding in Rodents
- 10 Cooperative Breeding in Naked Mole-Rats: Implications for Vertebrate and Invertebrate Sociality
- 11 The Physiology of a Reproductive Dictatorship: Regulation of Male and Female Reproduction by a Single Breeding Female in Colonies of Naked Mole-Rats
- 12 Factors Influencing the Occurrence of Communal Care in Plural Breeding Mammals
- 13 A Bird's-Eye View of Mammalian Cooperative Breeding
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Cooperative breeding presents biologists with challenging questions. Under what ecological conditions does cooperative breeding evolve? How can we explain, at both proximate and ultimate levels, intra- and interspecific variation in the delayed dispersal, reproductive suppression, and alloparental care that is characteristic of cooperative breeders? Why is cooperative breeding prevalent in some taxa but rare or absent in others? Although difficult, these questions are not completely intractable; as should be evident from the other chapters in this volume, general answers are beginning to emerge, at least in broad outline. Definitive answers are still many years away but clearly within our reach.
This volume is devoted to cooperative breeding in mammals. Nonetheless, it may be useful to compare the chapters here with the relevant literature on cooperative breeding in birds. I have therefore written this chapter with three objectives in mind. My first goal is to provide a brief and somewhat selective review of avian cooperative breeding; more extensive reviews are readily available elsewhere (e.g., Brown 1987; Koenig & Mumme 1990; Stacey & Koenig 1990; Emlen 1991; Koenig et al. 1992). Second, by using other papers in this volume as a point of departure, I wish to compare what we now know about cooperative breeding in mammals with our current understanding of the phenomenon in birds. Third, I hope to identify profitable areas for future research, especially those areas where the study of mammalian cooperative breeding systems is likely to lead to important advances.
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- Information
- Cooperative Breeding in Mammals , pp. 364 - 388Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997
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