Clever mothers balance time and effort in parental care: a study on free-ranging dogs

Mammalian offspring require parental care, at least in the form of nursing during their early development. While mothers need to invest considerable time and energy in ensuring the survival of their current offspring, they also need to optimize their investment in one batch of offspring in order to ensure future reproduction and hence lifetime reproductive success. Free-ranging dogs live in small social groups, mate promiscuously and lack the cooperative breeding biology of other group-living canids. They face high early-life mortality, which in turn reduces fitness benefits of the mother from a batch of pups. We carried out a field-based study on free-ranging dogs in India to understand the nature of maternal care. Our analysis reveals that mothers reduce investment in energy-intensive active care and increase passive care as the pups grow older, thereby keeping overall levels of care more or less constant over pup age. Using the patterns of mother–pup interactions, we define the diffe...

哺乳动物幼崽需要亲代抚育，在发育早期至少需通过哺乳的形式获得照料。尽管母兽需要投入大量时间与精力以保障当前幼崽的存活，但它们同时也需要优化对每胎幼崽的投入，以此确保未来的繁殖能力，进而实现终身繁殖成功率的最大化。自由散养家犬（free-ranging dogs）以小型社会群体为单位活动，实行混杂交配，且不具备其他群居犬科动物的合作育幼行为模式。该类群幼崽的早期死亡率较高，这会降低母兽从每胎幼崽中获得的适合度收益。我们针对印度境内的自由散养家犬开展了一项野外研究，以探究母育行为的本质特征。分析结果显示，随着幼崽逐渐成长，母兽会减少对高能耗主动照料的投入，同时增加被动照料的占比，从而使整体照料水平在幼崽的整个发育阶段大致保持稳定。我们基于母兽与幼崽的互动模式，对不同的……进行了界定。