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极具启发性的理论前提。在散养犬种群中，母犬会在断奶阶段后，延长对幼崽的亲代抚育并加剧二者间的冲突。本研究旨在探究：对于通常以食腐者身份生活在高度竞争环境中的家犬而言，资源质量是否会影响其POC水平？我们构建了一套理论模型，用以预测当分别提供富含蛋白质的食物（肉类）与富含碳水化合物的食物（饼干）时，母犬在与幼崽共享食物的情境下可采取的不同应对策略。我们将实验获取的母犬行为响应数据拟合至该模型，结果显示母犬会选择自私策略：该策略可保障其获得更高的终生繁殖成功率，同时剥夺当前同窝幼崽获取更优质资源的机会。上述研究结果对于理解家犬的社会动态，以及从高度社会性祖先演化而来的物种的兼性社会性起源具有重要启示意义。我们推测，在资源富足条件下冲突加剧的趋势，或许推动了犬类祖先的驯化进程——这些祖先脱离原种群，转而依赖人类聚居地周边更为丰富的食物资源。