NDLI: Individual variation in workload during parental care: can we detect a physiological signature of quality or cost of reproduction?

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Williams, Tony D. Fowler, Melinda A.
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	How hard do birds work during parental care, chick rearing, or provisioning of their nestlings? And if birds do work hard, can we detect a physiological signature of individual variation in workload ability (perhaps related to ‘quality’) or costs associated with high workload? Here, we provide a broad conceptual perspective on these questions. Life-history theory predicts (or requires) that (1) parental care is hard work, (2) individuals that invest more in parental care benefit in terms of rearing more, larger, fitter offspring, but that (3) increased investment in parental care comes at a cost: decreased future fecundity and/or survival. However, we start by highlighting studies that are inconsistent with this conventional view, e.g., (1) females often do not pay a survival cost of increased workload (though males do), (2) some (high quality?) individuals appear to maximise numerous life-history traits, and (3) workload during parental care often does not predict productivity. We suggest that an “exercise physiology” perspective on parental care might be informative, but highlight the fact that existing models of exercise often involve conditions very different from that free-living animals experience while foraging (e.g., using forced exercise) and are often divorced from the critical relationship in free-living animals between exercise and acquisition of resources. We briefly review studies looking at physiological effects of workload during parental care in free-living birds, but again highlight our surprising lack of knowledge in this area especially where experimental manipulation of workload is coupled with comprehensive, physiological analysis. Finally, we make three recommendations for how can we advance the study of physiology of parental care in chick-rearing birds: (1) experimental manipulation of workload, (2) obtaining better measures of workload, for large numbers of known-individuals, and (3) better assessment of physiology of individual quality, and identification of specific metrics of workload-induced ‘wear and tear’.
Starting Page	441
Ending Page	451
Page Count	11
File Format	PDF
ISSN	21937192
Journal	Journal für Ornithologie
Volume Number	156
Issue Number	1
e-ISSN	21937206
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2015-03-31
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Subject Keyword	Parental care Exercise physiology Workload Sturnus vulgaris Cost of reproduction Physiological costs Zoology Ecology Fish & Wildlife Biology & Management
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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