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Parental investment without kin recognition: simple conditional rules for parent–offspring behavior

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology volume 65, pages 1079–1091 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Species differ widely with regard to parental investment strategies and mechanisms underlying those strategies. The passing of benefits to likely genetic offspring can be mediated through a number of different computational and behavioral systems. We report results from an agent-based model in which offspring maintain proximity with parents and parents transmit benefits to offspring without the capacity of either parent or offspring to “recognize” one another. Instead, parents follow a simple rule to emit benefits after reproducing and offspring follow a simple rule of moving in the direction of positive benefit gradients. This model differs from previous models of spatial kin-based altruism in that individuals are modeled as having different behavioral rules at different life stages and benefits are transmitted unidirectionally from parents to offspring. High rates of correctly directed parental investment occur when mobility and sociality are low and parental investment occurs over a short period of time. We suggest that strategies based on recognition and bonding/attachment might serve to increase rates of correctly directed parental investment under parameters that are shown here to otherwise lead to high rates of misdirected and wasted parental investment.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the lab groups of Eduardo Fernandez-Duque, Bruce Ellis and Lee Cronk for helpful comments and suggestions regarding this manuscript. Fernandez-Duque was supported by the Argentinean CONICET and both Aktipis and Fernandez-Duque were supported by the University of Pennsylvania during the analysis of the data and preparation of the manuscript. Aktipis was supported by a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and National Cancer Institute grants F32CA144331 and R01CA140657. We thank Liz Dong for editorial assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    C. Athena Aktipis

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Eduardo Fernandez-Duque

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  1. C. Athena Aktipis
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  2. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque
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Correspondence to C. Athena Aktipis.

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Communicated by M. Hauber

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Aktipis, C.A., Fernandez-Duque, E. Parental investment without kin recognition: simple conditional rules for parent–offspring behavior. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 65, 1079–1091 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-1115-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-1115-9

Keywords

  • Conditional movement
  • Parental investment
  • Kin recognition
  • Parental care
  • Agent-based model