Population level consequences of facultatively cooperative behaviour in a stochastic environment.

ABSTRACT: The social environment in which individuals live affects their fitness and in turn population dynamics as a whole. Birds with facultative cooperative breeding can live in social groups with dominants, subordinate helpers that assist with the breeding of others, and subordinate non-helpers. Helping behaviour benefits dominants through increased reproductive rates and reduced extrinsic mortality, such that cooperative breeding might have evolved in response to unpredictable, harsh conditions affecting reproduction and/or survival of the dominants. Additionally, there may be different costs and benefits to both helpers and non-helpers, depending on the time-scale. For example, early-life costs might be compensated by later-life benefits. These differential effects are rarely analysed in the s

SUBMITTER: Busana M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9299144 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature