0000000000148453
AUTHOR
Roger Härdling
Priority versus Brute Force: When Should Males Begin Guarding Resources?
When should males begin guarding a resource when both resources and guarders vary in quality? This general problem applies, for example, to migrant birds occupying territories in the spring and to precopula in crustaceans where males grab females before they molt and become receptive. Previous work has produced conflicting predictions. Theory on migrant birds predicts that the strongest competitors should often arrive first, whereas some models of mate guarding have predicted that the strongest competitors wait and then simply usurp a female from a weaker competitor. We build a general model of resource guarding that allows varying the ease with which takeovers occur. The model is phrased i…
Dynamics of the caring family
When several individuals simultaneously provide for offspring, as in families, the effort of any one individual will depend on the efforts of the other family members. This conflict of interest among family members is made more complicated by their relatedness because relatives share genetic interest to some degree. The conflict resolution will also be influenced by the differences in reproductive value between breeders and helpers. Here, we calculate evolutionarily stable provisioning efforts in families with up to two helpers. We explicitly consider that the behavioral choices are made in a life-history context, and we also consider how group sizes change dynamically; this affects, for ex…