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Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research

Extreme reproductive skew occurs when a dominant female/male almost monopolizes reproduction within a group of multiple sexually mature females/males, respectively. It is sometimes considered an additional, restrictive criterion to define cooperative breeding. However, datasets that use this restric...

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Autores principales: Ben Mocha, Yitzchak, Dahan, Tal, Zou, Yuqi, Griesser, Michael, Markman, Shai
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10498043/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37700641
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0607
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author Ben Mocha, Yitzchak
Dahan, Tal
Zou, Yuqi
Griesser, Michael
Markman, Shai
author_facet Ben Mocha, Yitzchak
Dahan, Tal
Zou, Yuqi
Griesser, Michael
Markman, Shai
author_sort Ben Mocha, Yitzchak
collection PubMed
description Extreme reproductive skew occurs when a dominant female/male almost monopolizes reproduction within a group of multiple sexually mature females/males, respectively. It is sometimes considered an additional, restrictive criterion to define cooperative breeding. However, datasets that use this restrictive definition to classify species as cooperative breeders systematically overestimate reproductive skew by including groups in which reproduction cannot be shared by definition (e.g. groups with a single female/male). Here, we review the extent of reproductive sharing in 41 mammal and 37 bird species previously classified as exhibiting alloparental care and extreme reproductive skew, while only considering multi-female or multi-male groups. We demonstrate that in groups where unequal reproduction sharing is possible, extreme reproductive skew occurs in a few species only (11/41 mammal species and 12/37 bird species). These results call for significant changes in datasets that classify species' caring and mating system. To facilitate these changes, we provide an updated dataset on reproductive sharing in 63 cooperatively breeding species. At the conceptual level, our findings suggest that reproductive skew should not be a defining criterion of cooperative breeding and support the definition of cooperative breeding as a care system in which alloparents provide systematic care to other group members’ offspring.
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spelling pubmed-104980432023-09-14 Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research Ben Mocha, Yitzchak Dahan, Tal Zou, Yuqi Griesser, Michael Markman, Shai Proc Biol Sci Review Articles Extreme reproductive skew occurs when a dominant female/male almost monopolizes reproduction within a group of multiple sexually mature females/males, respectively. It is sometimes considered an additional, restrictive criterion to define cooperative breeding. However, datasets that use this restrictive definition to classify species as cooperative breeders systematically overestimate reproductive skew by including groups in which reproduction cannot be shared by definition (e.g. groups with a single female/male). Here, we review the extent of reproductive sharing in 41 mammal and 37 bird species previously classified as exhibiting alloparental care and extreme reproductive skew, while only considering multi-female or multi-male groups. We demonstrate that in groups where unequal reproduction sharing is possible, extreme reproductive skew occurs in a few species only (11/41 mammal species and 12/37 bird species). These results call for significant changes in datasets that classify species' caring and mating system. To facilitate these changes, we provide an updated dataset on reproductive sharing in 63 cooperatively breeding species. At the conceptual level, our findings suggest that reproductive skew should not be a defining criterion of cooperative breeding and support the definition of cooperative breeding as a care system in which alloparents provide systematic care to other group members’ offspring. The Royal Society 2023-09-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10498043/ /pubmed/37700641 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0607 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Review Articles
Ben Mocha, Yitzchak
Dahan, Tal
Zou, Yuqi
Griesser, Michael
Markman, Shai
Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research
title Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research
title_full Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research
title_fullStr Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research
title_full_unstemmed Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research
title_short Evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research
title_sort evidence for a reproductive sharing continuum in cooperatively breeding mammals and birds: consequences for comparative research
topic Review Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10498043/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37700641
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0607
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