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Habitat structure influences parent-offspring association in a social lizard

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 21:08 authored by Thomas Botterill-JamesThomas Botterill-James, Benjamin HalliwellBenjamin Halliwell, Cooper-Scott, E, Uller, T, Erik WapstraErik Wapstra, Geoffrey WhileGeoffrey While
Parental care emerges as a result of an increase in the extent of interaction between parents and their offspring. These interactions can provide the foundation for the evolution of a range of complex parental behaviors. Therefore, fundamental to understanding the evolution of parental care is an understanding of the factors that promote this initial increase in parent-offspring association. Here, we used large outdoor enclosures to test how the spatial structure of high-quality habitat affects the occurrence of parent-offspring associations in a social lizard (Liopholis whitii). We found that the extent of parent-offspring association was higher when high-quality habitat was aggregated relative to when it was dispersed. This may be the result of greater competitive exclusion of adults and offspring from high quality crevices sites in the aggregated treatment compared to the dispersed treatment. Associating with parents had significant benefits for offspring growth and body condition but there were no concomitant effects on offspring survival. We did not find costs of parent-offspring association for parents in terms of increased harassment and loss of body condition. We discuss a number of potential mechanisms underlying these results. Regardless of mechanisms, our results suggest that habitat structure may shape the extent of parent-offspring association in L. whitti, and that highly aggregated habitats may set the stage for the diversification of more complex forms of care observed across closely related species.

Funding

Australian Research Council

History

Publication title

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Volume

4

Issue

96

Pagination

1-10

ISSN

2296-701X

Department/School

School of Natural Sciences

Publisher

Frontiers Research Foundation

Place of publication

Switzerland

Rights statement

Copyright 2016 Botterill-james, Halliwell, Cooper-scott, Uller, Wapstra and While. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences

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