The Evolution of Parental Care
Nick J. Royle, Per T. Smiseth, and Mathias Kölliker
Abstract
Parental care includes a wide variety of traits that enhance offspring development and survival. It is taxonomically widespread and is central to the maintenance of biodiversity through its close association with other phenomena such as sexual selection, life-history evolution, sex allocation, sociality, cooperation and conflict, growth and development, genetic architecture, and phenotypic plasticity. This novel book provides a fresh perspective on the study of the evolution of parental care based on contributions from some of the top researchers in the field. It provides evidence that the dyn ... More
Parental care includes a wide variety of traits that enhance offspring development and survival. It is taxonomically widespread and is central to the maintenance of biodiversity through its close association with other phenomena such as sexual selection, life-history evolution, sex allocation, sociality, cooperation and conflict, growth and development, genetic architecture, and phenotypic plasticity. This novel book provides a fresh perspective on the study of the evolution of parental care based on contributions from some of the top researchers in the field. It provides evidence that the dynamic nature of family interactions, and particularly the potential for co-evolution among family members, has contributed to the great diversity of forms of parental care and life-histories across as well as within taxa.
Keywords:
parental care,
biodiversity,
sexual selection,
life-history evolution,
sex allocation,
sociality,
cooperation,
conflict,
growth,
genetic architecture
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199692576 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: December 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199692576.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Nick J. Royle, editor
Centre for Ecology & Conservation, University of Exeter, UK
Per T. Smiseth, editor
Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, UK
Mathias Kölliker, author
Department of Environmental Sciences, Zoology and Evolution, University of Basel
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