Selfish mothers? An empirical test of parent-offspring conflict over extended parental care.
Parent-offspring conflict (POC) theory is an interesting conceptual framework for understanding the dynamics of parental care. However, this theory is not easy to test empirically, as exact measures of parental investment in an experimental set-up are difficult to obtain. We have used free-ranging dogs Canis familiaris in India, to study POC in the context of extended parental care. We observed females and their pups in their natural habitat for the mother's tendency to share food given by humans with her pups in the weaning and post-weaning stages. Since these dogs are scavengers, and depend largely on human provided food for their sustenance, voluntary sharing of food by the mother with her pups is a good surrogate for extended parental care. Our behavioural observations convincingly demonstrate an increase of conflict and decrease of cooperation by the mother with her offspring over given food within a span of 4-6 weeks. We also demonstrate that the competition among the pups in a litter scales with litter size, an indicator of sib-sib competition.
Behaviour and Ecology Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research - Kolkata, India.
Manabi
M
Paul
Behaviour and Ecology Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research - Kolkata, India.
Sreejani
S
Sen Majumder
Behaviour and Ecology Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research - Kolkata, India. Electronic address: abhadra@iiserkol.ac.in.
Anindita
A
Bhadra
D000374:Aggression; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D000818:Animals; D000833:Animals, Suckling; D003163:Competitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004285:Dogs; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005502:Food; D008098:Litter Size; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D014886:Weaning
Canis familiaris; Competition; Parent-offspring conflict; Weaning