Search results for " Parental care"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
BIOLOGY OF THE WREN, TROGLODYTES TROGLODYTES, IN A MEDITERRANEAN INSULAR AGROECOSYSTEM
2009
In the last years many species of birds have exploited urban and suburban habitats, taking opportunistically advantage of human presence for their niche parameters. The Wren is one of them and shows a high variability in the choice of nesting sites in the gardens of the outskirts of Palermo (Sicily). For many years the authors studied the breeding habits of this small bird, and thanks to the video-tape recordings on the nests, they were able to gather new information on its feeding habits and parental care. They could establish the role played by both parents, the different prey types carried to the chicks, and other data, scarcely known in the southern part of distribution of this passerin…
Sex roles and sex ratios in animals
2022
In species with separate sexes, females and males often differ in their morphology, physiology and behaviour. Such sex-specific traits are functionally linked to variation in reproductive competition, mate choice and parental care, which have all been linked to sex roles. At the 150th anniversary of Darwin's theory on sexual selection, the question of why patterns of sex roles vary within and across species remains a key topic in behavioural and evolutionary ecology. New theoretical, experimental and comparative evidence suggests that variation in the adult sex ratio (ASR) is a key driver of variation in sex roles. Here, we first define and discuss the historical emergence of the sex role c…
How far do tadpoles travel in the rainforest? : Parent-assisted dispersal in poison frogs
2019
Parents can influence offspring dispersal through breeding site selection, competition, or by directly moving their offspring during parental care. Many animals move their young, but the potential role of this behavior in dispersal has rarely been investigated. Neotropical poison frogs (Dendrobatidae) are well known for shuttling their tadpoles from land to water, but the associated movements have rarely been quantified and the potential function of tadpole transport in dispersal has not been addressed. We used miniature radio-transmitters to track the movements of two poison frog species during tadpole transport, and surveyed pool availability in the study area. We found that parental male…
Mapping risk factors for depression across the lifespan: An umbrella review of evidence from meta-analyses and Mendelian randomization studies
2018
The development of depression may involve a complex interplay of environmental and genetic risk factors. PubMed and PsycInfo databases were searched from inception through August 3, 2017, to identify meta-analyses and Mendelian randomization (MR) studies of environmental risk factors associated with depression. For each eligible meta-analysis, we estimated the summary effect size and its 95% confidence interval (CI) by random-effects modeling, the 95% prediction interval, heterogeneity with I 2 , and evidence of small-study effects and excess significance bias. Seventy meta-analytic reviews met the eligibility criteria and provided 134 meta-analyses for associations from 1283 primary studie…
Childhood neglect and parental care perception in cocaine addicts: Relation with psychiatric symptoms and biological correlates
2009
Childhood neglect and poor child–parent relationships have been reported to increase substance use disorders susceptibility. Stressful environmental factors, including emotional neglect, could affect individual personality traits and mental health, possibly inducing stable changes in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and brain mono-amine function, in turn involved in addictive behavior vulnerability. Therefore, we decided to investigate homovanillic (HVA) and prolactin (PRL) plasma levels, as expression of possible changes in dopamine function, ACTH and cortisol plasma levels, as measures of HPA axis function, and concomitant psychiatric symptoms profile in abstinent cocaine a…
How to escape from insect egg parasitoids: A review of potential factors explaining parasitoid absence across the Insecta: Escape from insect egg par…
2020
The egg is the first life stage directly exposed to the environment in oviparous animals, including many vertebrates and most arthropods. Eggs are vulnerable and prone to mortality risks. In arthropods, one of the most common egg mortality factors is attack from parasitoids. Yet, parasitoids that attack the egg stage are absent in more than half of all insect (sub)orders. In this review, we explore possible causes explaining why eggs of some insect taxa are not parasitized. Many insect (sub)orders that are not attacked by egg parasitoids lack herbivorous species, with some notable exceptions. Factors we consider to have led to escape from egg parasitism are parental egg care, rapid egg deve…