Parental care decisions in mammals and birds

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I study the social, hormonal and environmental factors that affect how birds and mammals make parental care decisions. Parents in biparental species (in which both parents provide care) should balance the needs of their offspring with their own and their partners' requirements for maintaining health and good body condition. I focus on two mammalian systems where paternal care is flexible and shows considerable individual variation: humans and rodents. We have shown that human fathers require more parental experience than mothers to develop the same level of hormonal responsiveness (i.e., changes in prolactin levels) to infant contact. In this grant period I will examine how hormone levels and partner contact affect men's responsiveness to infants and men's willingness to perform extra parental work. Demonstrating a link between parental interactions and fathering behaviour could help shape social policy that promotes increased father involvement in wider segments of our society. In the proposed animal studies, I will examine how the distribution and abundance of resources (food) affect how time is budgeted between foraging and bouts of offspring care, research that may have implications for nursing success in human mothers. My third study species is a seabird (common murre), in which extensive paternal care is critical to offspring survival. Results from the seabird studies will add to our understanding of how within-pair interactions and yearly differences in food availability affect parental decisions. Through my continuing collaborative studies with government environmental agencies, my seabird research can also contribute to conservation and wildlife management decisions that will protect the marine environment.