The adaptive significance of provisioning and foraging coordination between breeding partners

Sexual conflict over parental care relies on the fundamental assumption that parents do not share the cost of their partner’s effort on future reproduction. However, this is unlikely to be true whenever partners breed together more than once. In that case, individuals should try to optimize the cost and benefits for the pair, rather than only for themselves. Here we seek to establish whether the synchronization of parents’ provisioning visits to the nest could fulfill this function. We conducted a brood-size manipulation experiment on wild zebra finches to test whether nest visit synchrony was flexible and beneficial for nestlings’ growth, while controlling for the confounding effects of pair “quality” and synchrony away from the nest during foraging. Using a network of readers to track parents at nests and feeding stations, we found that nest visit synchrony responded directly to the brood manipulation and increased with brood size. Synchrony at the nest and while foraging were correla...

育幼行为中的性冲突，其立论的基本假设为：双亲不会分担伴侣为未来繁殖投入的努力所带来的成本。然而，当配对双方多次共同繁殖时，这一假设大概率不成立。在此情境下，个体应致力于优化配对整体的成本与收益，而非仅以自身利益为出发点。本研究旨在探讨：双亲往返巢区的育幼投喂同步性，是否可承担这一优化配对收益的功能。本研究以野生斑胸草雀为对象开展窝雏数操控实验，旨在验证巢区投喂同步性是否具备可塑性，且对雏鸟生长具有益处；同时控制了配对质量以及觅食阶段远离巢区时的同步行为所带来的混淆效应。通过部署阅读器网络追踪巢区与投喂站的双亲行为，我们发现：巢区投喂同步性会直接响应窝雏数操控处理，并随窝雏数增大而提升。巢区投喂同步性与觅食期间的同步行为呈相关（原文末尾内容截断）