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Sibling competition and cooperation in mammals: challenges, developments and prospects

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Abstract

Many vertebrates grow up in the company of same or different-age siblings, and relations among them can be expected to significantly influence individual life histories and the development of individual morphological, physiological, and behavioral phenotypes. Although studies in birds still dominate and have stimulated most theoretical considerations, the increasing number of mammalian studies promises to broaden our understanding of this complex field by enabling interesting comparisons with the rather different bird system. It therefore seems timely to bring together recent studies of sibling relations in mammals and to demonstrate what these can offer in the way of fresh insights. In this brief review, intended to accompany a series of papers on a diverse range of mammals, we outline the current state of sibling research in mammals, comparing it to the better studied birds. Most obviously, in mammals, mother and young are in much closer contact during early life than in birds, and siblings can influence each other’s development as well as the mother’s physiology while still in utero. During nursing, mammalian young also encounter a very different feeding situation to bird siblings. These contrasts should help stimulate further debate, as well as provide further opportunities to study the relative importance of maternal versus sibling effects on individual development. Finally, we discuss the need to balance studies of sibling competition and conflict with a consideration of the benefits accruing to individuals from sibling presence and the need for long-term studies of the influence of early sibling relations on individual development and life histories.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Tatiana Czeschlick who enthusiastically took up the idea of producing this special issue and helped it along from the time of its conception, through gestation and to the final version. A. Schulte-Hostedde put a tremendous amount of work into editing this special issue and helped in many ways to see the manuscripts through the sometimes erratic process in a friendly and efficient manner. Robyn Hudson and Fritz Trillmich contributed equally and have been arranged in alphabetical order.

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  1. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, AP 70228, 04510, Mexico, Federal District, Mexico

    Robyn Hudson

  2. Department of Animal Behavior, University Bielefeld, PO Box 10 01 31, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany

    Fritz Trillmich

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  1. Robyn Hudson
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  2. Fritz Trillmich
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Correspondence to Robyn Hudson.

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Communicated by A. Schulte-Hostedde

This contribution represents the introduction to the special issue “Sibling competition and cooperation in mammals”.

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Hudson, R., Trillmich, F. Sibling competition and cooperation in mammals: challenges, developments and prospects. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 62, 299–307 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-0417-z

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