Data from: Hierarchical decision-making balances current and future reproductive success

Parental decisions in animals are often context-dependent and shaped by fitness trade-offs between parents and offspring. For example, the selection of breeding habitats can considerably impact the fitness of both offspring and parents, and therefore parents should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of available options for their current and future reproductive success. Here we show that resource-use preferences are shaped by a trade-off between parental effort and offspring safety in a tadpole-transporting frog. In a large-scale in-situ experiment, we investigated decision-strategies across an entire population of poison frogs that distribute their tadpoles across multiple water bodies. Pool use followed a dynamic and sequential selection process and transportation became more efficient over time. Our results point to a complex suite of environmental variables that are considered during offspring deposition, which necessitates a highly dynamic and flexible decision-making process in tadpole-transporting frogs.动物的亲代决策通常具有情境依赖性，且受亲代与子代间的适合度权衡（fitness trade-offs）所塑造。例如，繁殖栖息地的选择会对亲代与子代的适合度产生显著影响，因此亲代需审慎权衡各项可选方案的成本与收益，以保障当前及未来的繁殖成功。本研究以一种携运蝌蚪的蛙类为对象，揭示其资源利用偏好由亲代投入与子代安全之间的权衡所调控。在大规模原位（in-situ）实验中，我们对整个箭毒蛙（poison frogs）种群的决策策略展开了研究——该种群会将蝌蚪分散安置于多个水体中。蝌蚪栖息池的利用遵循动态且连续的选择流程，且随时间推移，蝌蚪携运行为的效率逐步提升。本研究结果表明，子代安置过程中需考量一系列复杂的环境变量，这要求携运蝌蚪的蛙类具备高度动态且灵活的决策机制。