ANTH 011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Alloparenting, Parental Investment, Infant Mortality
19 May 2020
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Document Summary
Care for offspring includes nourishment, transportation, warmth, protection. Care leads to higher survival: however, care for the present infant reduces ability to care for other infants, must balance quantity of offspring vs. quantity. In captivity, females are able to reproduce faster than in the wild. In the wild, provisioning increases female fertility. When resources are clumped and valuable, females compete: sometime directly over food, but also indirectly via dominance rank. Access to resources is correlated with rank, and rank is also sometimes correlated with reproductive success. Cooperation reduces costs of rearing offspring: in some species, other group members help care for infants (alloparenting). Allomaternal care reduces interbirth interval and speeds infant growth, leading to increased rs. Selection shapes parenting strategies of males and females. Parents must make trade offs between current and future offspring. Strategies depend on details of reproductive biology. Mammalian females are obligated to invest in offspring.
