Helpers of the Giant Babax cheat for an immediate reward when they provision the brood

Autor: Li-Li Xian, Xin-Wei Da, Bo Du, Guo-Liang Chen, Li-Qing Fan, Juan-Juan Luo
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Ornithology. 159:245-253
ISSN: 2193-7206
2193-7192
DOI: 10.1007/s10336-017-1496-x
Popis: Cooperative breeding is a special form of cooperation between dominant breeders and subordinate helpers, in which cheating by helpers happens occasionally. As cheating by helpers will reduce the interest of dominant breeders in them, it is difficult to understand why dominant breeders often tolerate the presence of cheaters within the group. We addressed this in the Giant Babax Babax waddelli, a cooperative breeder that breeds exclusively on the Tibetan Plateau. During the nestling period, helpers exhibited three types of non-feeding behaviors when they visited the nest: pseudo-feeding, without food but mimicking food delivery activities; false feeding, delivering plastic debris to nestlings; and contested kleptoparasitism of fecal sacs of nestlings, without delivering food but snatching fecal sacs of nestlings after others delivered food. We found that these non-feeding behaviors of helpers had an obvious aim, to get fecal sacs of nestlings, thus they were considered to be cheating. In response to the cheating of a helper, the female breeder reacted negatively, the male breeder disregarded it, and other helpers became accomplices. Since helpers contributed nearly 70% to brood provisioning, the benefits that breeders obtained from the presence of helpers outweighed the costs caused by the cheaters. This can explain why dominant breeders do not evict cheaters from the cooperative group. We suggest that a short-term reward may be also an important force driving helpers to cheat in cooperative breeding.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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