Co-operation, conflict and the coordination of care in a social bird

父母经常合作照顾后代，但由于父母的自私利益不同，关于每个人提供的照顾量的性冲突是不可避免的。由此产生的“投资游戏”之间的男性和女性已被广泛探讨的物种与双亲照顾，但这个游戏变得更加复杂的合作育种系统，父母的帮助下，照顾年轻的助手。在这样的系统中，投资游戏在父母和助手提供的相对护理量方面具有高度可变的结果（绿色等人。2016）。最重要的是，照顾者通过谈判的机制，每个球员的最佳投资很少受到关注，无论是双亲或合作育种系统。本项目将研究长尾山雀（Aegithalos caudatus）的父母和助手如何协调对后代的照顾，以解决冲突并最大限度地提高个体适应性。该研究将利用对长尾山雀25年研究的父母照顾和适应性数据，结合实地观察和实验，和投资模式的统计建模，以实现以下目标：1。以确定父母和助手是否通过协调访问鸟巢2协商照顾。确定护理协调的可变性对后代状况和存活率的影响3。本研究将探讨父母与帮工之间的照顾模式，并验证近年来理论研究中关于协调差异的原因和后果的多个假设。学生将在谢菲尔德附近的长尾山雀的一个单独标记的人口工作，其中一个详细的数据库供应行为已经存在。学生还将进行新的实地实验，并开发统计模型来测试假设。该项目从最近对长尾山雀的投资游戏（亚当斯等人2015）和双亲护理协调（Bebbington & Hatchwell 2016）的研究中引出，并将补充研究地点正在进行的该物种的研究。

Parents often cooperate to care for offspring, but sexual conflict over the amount of care that each provides is inevitable because the selfish interests of parents differ. The resulting 'investment game' between males and females has been explored extensively in species with biparental care, but this game becomes far more complex in cooperative breeding systems where parents are assisted by helpers in caring for young. Investment games in such systems have a highly variable outcome in terms of the relative amounts of care provided by parents and helpers (Green et al. 2016). Most importantly, the mechanism through which carers negotiate the optimal investment of each player has received little attention in either biparental or cooperative breeding systems. This project will investigate how parents and helpers in a cooperatively breeding bird, the long-tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus, coordinate their care for offspring in order to resolve conflicts and maximize individual fitness.The studentship will use data on parental care and fitness from a 25-year study of long-tailed tits, coupled with field observations and experiments, and statistical modeling of investment patterns to achieve the following objectives:1. To determine whether parents and helpers negotiate care through the coordination of visits to nests2. To determine the effect of variability in the coordination of care on offspring condition and survival3. To conduct field observations and experiments to determine the proximate factors affecting coordination of care by parents and helpersThis project will examine patterns of care among parents and helpers, testing multiple hypotheses derived from recent theoretical studies on the causes and consequences of variation in coordination. The student will work on an individually marked population of long-tailed tits near Sheffield for which a detailed database on provisioning behaviour already exists. The student will also conduct novel field experiments and develop statistical models to test hypotheses. This project leads on from recent studies of investment games (Adams et al. 2015) and biparental coordination of care (Bebbington & Hatchwell 2016) in long-tailed tits, and will complement ongoing studies of this species at the study site.