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Insights into Parental Care from Studies on Non-mammalian Vertebrates

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Abstract

Parental care has attracted attention from both proximate and ultimate perspectives. While understanding the adaptive significance of care has been the focus of work in diverse organisms in behavioral ecology, most of what we know about the proximate mechanisms underlying parental care behavior comes from studies in mammals. Although studies on mammals have greatly improved our understanding of care, viewing parental care solely through a mammalian lens can limit our understanding. Here, we draw upon examples from non-mammalian vertebrate systems to show that in many ways mammals are the exception rather than the rule for caregiving: across vertebrates, maternal care is often not the ancestral or the most common mode of care and fathering is not derivative of mothering. Embracing the diversity of parental care can improve our understanding of both the proximate basis and adaptive significance of parental care and the affective processes involved in caregiving.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Meghan F. Maciejewski & Alison M. Bell

  2. Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Alison M. Bell

  3. Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Alison M. Bell

  4. Program in Neuroscience, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Alison M. Bell

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  1. Meghan F. Maciejewski
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  2. Alison M. Bell
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Correspondence to Meghan F. Maciejewski.

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During the writing of this article, MFM was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Work in the Bell lab is supported by the National Institutes of Health (1R35GM139597, 2R01GM082937-06A1), National Science Foundation (IOS 1645170) and the University of Illinois (Arnold A. Beckman Award 20069, Romano Scholar Fund).

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Both authors contributed to the conception of the idea for this opinion piece, and to its writing.

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Handling Editor: Karen Bales

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Maciejewski, M.F., Bell, A.M. Insights into Parental Care from Studies on Non-mammalian Vertebrates. Affec Sci 3, 792–798 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-022-00127-4

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