Helping decisions and kin recognition in long-tailed tits: is call similarity used to direct help towards kin?

ABSTRACT: Most cooperative breeders live in discrete family groups, but in a minority, breeding populations comprise extended social networks of conspecifics that vary in relatedness. Selection for effective kin recognition may be expected for more related individuals in such kin neighbourhoods to maximize indirect fitness. Using a long-term social pedigree, molecular genetics, field observations and acoustic analyses, we examine how vocal similarity affects helping decisions in the long-tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus. Long-tailed tits are cooperative breeders in which help is typically redirected by males that have failed in their own breeding attempts towards the offspring of male relatives living within kin neighbourhoods. We identify a positive correlation between call similarity and kins

SUBMITTER: Leedale AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7331009 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature