Data from: Selfish mothers indeed! Resource-dependent conflict over extended parental care in free-ranging dogs

Parent–offspring conflict (POC) theory provides an interesting premise for understanding social dynamics in facultatively social species. In free-ranging dogs, mothers increase conflict over extended parental care with their pups beyond the weaning stage. In this study, we investigated whether resource quality affects POC in the dogs that typically live in a highly competitive environment as scavengers. We built a theoretical model to predict the alternative options available to the mother in the context of food sharing with her pups when protein-rich food (meat) is provided, as compared to carbohydrate-rich food (biscuits). We fit the mothers’ response from experimental data to the model and show that the mothers choose a selfish strategy, which can in turn ensure higher lifetime reproductive success, while depriving the current litter access to better resources. These results have interesting implications for understanding the social dynamics of the dogs, and the emergence of facultative sociality in a species that evolved from strongly social ancestors. We speculate that the tendency of increased conflict in resource-rich conditions might have driven the process of domestication in the ancestors of dogs which defected from their groups in favour of richer resources around human settlements.亲子冲突（Parent–offspring conflict, POC）理论为理解兼性社会性物种的社会动态提供了颇具趣味的理论前提。针对自由漫游犬，母犬会在断奶阶段之后，与幼崽就延长的亲代抚育行为产生愈发激烈的冲突。本研究旨在探究资源质量是否会对这类通常以食腐者身份生活在高度竞争环境中的犬类的POC产生影响。我们构建了理论模型，以预测当提供富含蛋白质的食物（肉类）相较于富含碳水化合物的食物（饼干）时，母犬在与幼崽共享食物的场景下可选择的不同策略。我们将实验获得的母犬行为响应数据拟合至该模型，结果表明母犬会选择自私策略：此类策略可确保母犬获得更高的终身繁殖成功率，同时剥夺当前一胎幼崽获取更优质资源的机会。上述研究结果对于理解犬类的社会动态，以及从高度社会性祖先演化而来的物种中兼性社会性的起源，均具有重要的启示意义。我们推测，在资源丰富的环境中冲突加剧的趋势，可能推动了犬类祖先的驯化进程：这些祖先脱离其群体，转而寻求人类聚居地周边更为丰富的食物资源。