Has sexual selection been overlooked in the study of avian helping behaviour?

Autor: David A. Putland
Rok vydání: 2001
Předmět:
Zdroj: Animal Behaviour. 62:811-814
ISSN: 0003-3472
DOI: 10.1006/anbe.2001.1831
Popis: Correspondence: D. Putland, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia (email: dputland@zen.uq.edu.au). Helping behaviour refers to the parental care provided to offspring by individuals that are not the social or genetic parents. The apparent paradox of helping behaviour has been one of the most widely studied areas of behavioural ecology in recent times. Recent reviews (e.g. Koenig & Mumme 1990; Cockburn 1998) have helped to outline the predominant theories in this field, which include the nonadaptive ‘unselected’ hypothesis (Jamieson 1991), and six general classes of adaptive theories: (1) increased production of collateral kin (kin selection); (2) payment-of-rent or mutualism; (3) access to mating opportunities; (4) improvement of local conditions; (5) establishment of strategic alliances (coalitions); and (6) improved skills (from Cockburn 1998). Most research emphasis has been placed on the kinselected benefits of helping, with the result that other benefits of help have yet to be fully explored. One of these other potential benefits gained from helping is increased access to mating opportunities. Helping may improve an individual’s access to mates in many ways. Most obviously, a helper may gain direct benefit if it is able to reproduce within the group. Alternatively, a helper may be able to gain extrapair copulations in neighbouring groups, whereas a nonterritorial floater may not have the same opportunities. Helping could also improve future access to mates; the more dominant helpers may be able to replace (or displace) the primary breeder and assume breeding status (e.g. moustached warbler, Acrocephalus melanopogon: Fessl et al. 1996; bushtit, Psaltriparus minimus: Sloane 1996). In these cases, the improved access to mates follows purely from the individual’s social or geographical position; for example, helping may allow an individual to remain on a higherquality territory than if it dispersed, and from this position, the individual has a better chance of finding a potential mate to court either within or outside of the group. However, what if helping not only improves a helper’s access to mates, but actually attracts mates? I propose that, in some species, helping behaviour may be a
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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