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Direct benefits explain interspecific variation in helping behaviour among cooperatively breeding birds.

ABSTRACT: Kin selection theory provides one important explanation for seemingly altruistic helping behaviour by non-breeding subordinates in cooperative breeding animals. However, it cannot explain why helpers in many species provide energetically costly care to unrelated offspring. Here, I use comparative analyses to show that direct fitness benefits of helping others, associated with future opportunities to breed in the resident territory, are responsible for the widespread variation in helping effort (offspring food provisioning) and kin discrimination across cooperatively breeding birds. In species where prospects of territory inheritance are larger, subordinates provide more help, and, unlike subordinates that cannot inherit a territory, do not preferentially direct care towards related offspring. Thus, while kin selection can underlie helping behaviour in some species, direct benefits are much more important than currently recognised and explain why unrelated individuals provide substantial help in many bird species.

SUBMITTER: Kingma SA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5653647 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Direct benefits explain interspecific variation in helping behaviour among cooperatively breeding birds.

Kingma Sjouke A SA

Nature communications 20171023 1

Kin selection theory provides one important explanation for seemingly altruistic helping behaviour by non-breeding subordinates in cooperative breeding animals. However, it cannot explain why helpers in many species provide energetically costly care to unrelated offspring. Here, I use comparative analyses to show that direct fitness benefits of helping others, associated with future opportunities to breed in the resident territory, are responsible for the widespread variation in helping effort ( ...[more]

PMID: 29061969

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Project description:BackgroundIdentifying persistence and extinction thresholds in species-habitat relationships is a major focal point of ecological research and conservation. However, one major concern regarding the incorporation of threshold analyses in conservation is the lack of knowledge on the generality and transferability of results across species and regions. We present a multi-region, multi-species approach of modeling threshold responses, which we use to investigate whether threshold effects are similar across species and regions.Methodology/principal findingsWe modeled local persistence and extinction dynamics of 25 forest-associated breeding birds based on detection/non-detection data, which were derived from repeated breeding bird atlases for the state of Vermont. We did not find threshold responses to be particularly well-supported, with 9 species supporting extinction thresholds and 5 supporting persistence thresholds. This contrasts with a previous study based on breeding bird atlas data from adjacent New York State, which showed that most species support persistence and extinction threshold models (15 and 22 of 25 study species respectively). In addition, species that supported a threshold model in both states had associated average threshold estimates of 61.41% (SE?=?6.11, persistence) and 66.45% (SE?=?9.15, extinction) in New York, compared to 51.08% (SE?=?10.60, persistence) and 73.67% (SE?=?5.70, extinction) in Vermont. Across species, thresholds were found at 19.45-87.96% forest cover for persistence and 50.82-91.02% for extinction dynamics.Conclusions/significanceThrough an approach that allows for broad-scale comparisons of threshold responses, we show that species vary in their threshold responses with regard to habitat amount, and that differences between even nearby regions can be pronounced. We present both ecological and methodological factors that may contribute to the different model results, but propose that regardless of the reasons behind these differences, our results merit a warning that threshold values cannot simply be transferred across regions or interpreted as clear-cut targets for ecosystem management and conservation.

Dataset Information

Direct benefits explain interspecific variation in helping behaviour among cooperatively breeding birds.

Publications

Direct benefits explain interspecific variation in helping behaviour among cooperatively breeding birds.

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