Induced parental care in a poison frog: a tadpole cross-fostering experiment.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the external stimuli and natural contexts that elicit complex behaviours, such as parental care, is key in linking behavioural mechanisms to their real-life function. Poison frogs provide obligate parental care by shuttling their tadpoles from terrestrial clutches to aquatic nurseries, but little is known about the proximate mechanisms that control these behaviours. In this study, we used Allobates femoralis, a poison frog with predominantly male parental care, to investigate whether tadpole transport can be induced in both sexes by transferring unrelated tadpoles to the backs of adults in the field. Specifically, we asked whether the presence of tadpoles on an adult's back can override the decision-making rules preceding tadpole pick-up and induce the recall of spatia

SUBMITTER: Pasukonis A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5702076 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature