Who cares?: Individual contributions to pup care by breeders vs non-breeders in the cooperatively breeding banded mongoose (Mungos mungo)
Who cares?: Individual contributions to pup care by breeders vs non-breeders in the cooperatively breeding banded mongoose (Mungos mungo)
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DOI：
10.1007/s00265-006-0338-2
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发表时间：
2007-05-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Russell, Andrew F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gilchrist, Jason S.;Russell, Andrew F.
通过育种者和非育种者的投资规则的知识，以及影响他们的因素，是必不可少的理解合作育种作为生活史策略的一部分。尽管人们已经在一些合作鸟类物种中研究了影响照顾幼崽相对贡献的因素，但关于哺乳动物的数据却很少，这使得在哺乳动物内部和不同分类群之间进行连贯的概括变得困难。在这项研究中，我们调查个人的贡献，幼犬护送，一个强有力的预测后代供应，在带状猫鼬（蒙戈蒙戈），合作繁殖的哺乳动物，生殖偏斜是低的。一岁以下的人（几乎从不繁殖）的贡献随着年龄和体重的增加而增加，但一般都很低。在年龄较大的类（一岁和成人），个人没有在目前的垃圾繁殖一般贡献护送比那些繁殖（一岁的男性除外）。此外，没有繁殖的女性减少了他们的投资，如果他们很重，大概是因为这样的女性更有可能在接下来的事件中繁殖，并从为此节省资源中受益。繁殖者在带状猫鼬中的贡献通常更大，这与最近在猫鼬（Suricata suricatta）中的发现形成对比，猫鼬是另一种强制性合作的猫鼬，具有类似的群体大小，但生殖偏斜很高。我们的研究结果表明，育种者与非育种者的相对贡献并不取决于组的大小，但在育种者的比例照顾者和非育种者将在不久的将来繁殖的概率。
Knowledge of the investment rules adopted by breeders and non-breeders, and the factors that affect them, is essential to understanding cooperative breeding as part of a life-history tactic. Although the factors that affect relative contributions to care of young have been studied in some cooperative bird species, there is little data on mammals, making coherent generalisations within mammals and across taxa difficult. In this study, we investigate individual contributions to pup escorting, a strong predictor of offspring provisioning, in the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo), a cooperatively breeding mammal in which reproductive skew is low. Contributions by those under a year old (which virtually never breed) increased with age and body weight but were generally low. Among older age classes (yearlings and adults), individuals that had not bred in the current litter generally contributed less to escorting than those that had bred (with the exception of yearling males). In addition, females that did not breed reduced their investment if they were heavy presumably because such females are more likely to breed in the following event and benefit from saving resources for this. The generally greater contributions by breeders in banded mongooses contrast with the recent findings in meerkats (Suricata suricatta), another obligatorily cooperative mongoose with similar group size but wherein reproductive skew is high. Our results suggest that relative contributions by breeders vs non-breeders are not dependent on group size but on the ratio of breeders to carers and the probability that non-breeders will breed in the near future.