Maternal presence facilitates plasticity in offspring behavior: insights into the evolution of parental care
| Autor: | Erik Wapstra, Geoffrey M. While, Luke Budd, Daniel W. A. Noble, Aryana Row, Kirke L. Munch |
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| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine Postnatal Care Liopholis whitii Boldness Offspring media_common.quotation_subject Biology 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Family life Developmental psychology 03 medical and health sciences 030104 developmental biology Animal Science and Zoology Paternal care Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Sociality media_common |
| Zdroj: | Behavioral Ecology. |
| ISSN: | 1465-7279 1045-2249 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/beheco/ary122 |
| Popis: | Fundamental to the definition of parental care is that care confers benefits to the offspring. However, the mechanisms resulting in these benefits remain poorly understood, particularly in species where postnatal care is not obligatory. Here, we address this shortcoming using a lizard, Liopholis whitii, in which family life is facultative and relatively simple - extending to prolonged associations between parents and offspring within the parental territory. Using a split-clutch design, we housed offspring either with their mother or alone during the first 8 weeks of postnatal life and examined whether maternal presence affected 1) the expression of key functional behaviors and 2) learning ability in a biologically relevant antipredatory task. We found that offspring housed with their mothers expressed heightened levels of activity, boldness, and exploration compared with offspring who were housed alone. Furthermore, we show that associating with mothers during early postnatal periods led to improved offspring performance in the antipredation learning task. Together these results suggest that even relatively simple forms of enhanced parent-offspring association can have significant impacts on offspring traits. We argue that such effects may help refine and stabilize parent–offspring associations early in their evolution, potentially setting the stage for the elaboration of both parent and offspring behaviors. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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