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Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care?

Adoption is rare in animals and is usually attributed to kin selection. In a 6-year study of eastern grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus), 11 of 326 juveniles were adopted. We detected eight adoptions by observing behavioural associations and nursing between marked mothers and young and three more by...

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Autores principales: King, Wendy J., Forsyth, David M., Coulson, Graeme, Festa-Bianchet, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430339/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25970624
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0125182
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author King, Wendy J.
Forsyth, David M.
Coulson, Graeme
Festa-Bianchet, Marco
author_facet King, Wendy J.
Forsyth, David M.
Coulson, Graeme
Festa-Bianchet, Marco
author_sort King, Wendy J.
collection PubMed
description Adoption is rare in animals and is usually attributed to kin selection. In a 6-year study of eastern grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus), 11 of 326 juveniles were adopted. We detected eight adoptions by observing behavioural associations and nursing between marked mothers and young and three more by analysing the relatedness of mothers and young using microsatellite DNA. Four adoptions involved reciprocal switches and three were by mothers whose own pouch young were known to subsequently disappear. Adoptive mothers were not closely related to each other or to adoptees but adoptive mothers and young associated as closely as did biological pairs, as measured by half-weight indices. Switch mothers did not associate closely. Maternal age and body condition did not influence the likelihood of adoption but females were more likely to adopt in years with high densities of females with large pouch young. Adoption did not improve juvenile survival. We conclude that adoptions in this wild population were potentially costly and likely caused by misdirected care, suggesting that eastern grey kangaroos may have poorly developed mother-offspring recognition mechanisms.
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spelling pubmed-44303392015-05-21 Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care? King, Wendy J. Forsyth, David M. Coulson, Graeme Festa-Bianchet, Marco PLoS One Research Article Adoption is rare in animals and is usually attributed to kin selection. In a 6-year study of eastern grey kangaroos (Macropus giganteus), 11 of 326 juveniles were adopted. We detected eight adoptions by observing behavioural associations and nursing between marked mothers and young and three more by analysing the relatedness of mothers and young using microsatellite DNA. Four adoptions involved reciprocal switches and three were by mothers whose own pouch young were known to subsequently disappear. Adoptive mothers were not closely related to each other or to adoptees but adoptive mothers and young associated as closely as did biological pairs, as measured by half-weight indices. Switch mothers did not associate closely. Maternal age and body condition did not influence the likelihood of adoption but females were more likely to adopt in years with high densities of females with large pouch young. Adoption did not improve juvenile survival. We conclude that adoptions in this wild population were potentially costly and likely caused by misdirected care, suggesting that eastern grey kangaroos may have poorly developed mother-offspring recognition mechanisms. Public Library of Science 2015-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4430339/ /pubmed/25970624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0125182 Text en © 2015 King et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
King, Wendy J.
Forsyth, David M.
Coulson, Graeme
Festa-Bianchet, Marco
Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care?
title Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care?
title_full Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care?
title_fullStr Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care?
title_full_unstemmed Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care?
title_short Adoption in Eastern Grey Kangaroos: A Consequence of Misdirected Care?
title_sort adoption in eastern grey kangaroos: a consequence of misdirected care?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4430339/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25970624
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0125182
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