Climate predicts which sex acts as helpers among cooperatively breeding bird species. (January 2017)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Climate predicts which sex acts as helpers among cooperatively breeding bird species. (January 2017)
- Main Title:
- Climate predicts which sex acts as helpers among cooperatively breeding bird species
- Authors:
- Zhang, Guoyue
Zhao, Qingtian
Møller, Anders Pape
Komdeur, Jan
Lu, Xin - Abstract:
- Abstract : Among avian cooperative breeders, help in raising offspring is usually provided by males or by both sexes. Sex bias in helping should evolve in response to sex-specific ecological constraints on independent reproduction, with mate shortage for males and breeding vacancy shortage for each sex. Given that male-biased adult sex ratios are prevalent among birds, we predict that male-only helping mainly occurs in temperate species where fast population turnovers deriving from low adult annual survival allow all adult females to hold breeding vacancies, whereas some males overflow as helpers, and both-sex helping in tropical species where saturated habitats prevent not only males, but also females from breeding themselves. As expected, we found that across species, adult survival increased towards tropical zones and warmer climates, and higher adult survival tended to be associated with both-sex helping. Furthermore, sex bias in helping was predicted by latitude and ambient temperature. Our findings of demographic response of species to climate as a potential determinant of bias in helper sex uncover how ecological constraints operate to limit independent reproduction in sex-specific ways.
- Is Part Of:
- Biology letters. Volume 13:Number 1(2017)
- Journal:
- Biology letters
- Issue:
- Volume 13:Number 1(2017)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 13, Issue 1 (2017)
- Year:
- 2017
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 1
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2017-0013-0001-0000
- Page Start:
- Page End:
- Publication Date:
- 2017-01
- Subjects:
- adult sex ratio -- annual survival -- comparative approach -- demography -- ecological constraints
Biology -- Periodicals
570.5 - Journal URLs:
- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsbl ↗
- DOI:
- 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0863 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1744-9561
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store
- Ingest File:
- 1962.xml