Zöttl, Markus; Schreier, Tanja; Taborsky, Michael (2023). Coercion promotes alloparental care in cooperative breeders. Behavioral Ecology, 34(3), pp. 363-372. Oxford University Press 10.1093/beheco/arac125
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Members of social groups may negotiate among each other about the exchange of goods and services. If this involves asymmetries between interacting partners, for instance in condition, power, or expected payoffs, coercion may be involved in the bargain. Cooperative breeders are excellent models to study such interactions, because asymmetries are inherent in the relationship between dominant breeders and subordinate helpers. Currently it is unclear whether punishment is used to enforce costly cooperation in such systems. Here we investigated experimentally in the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher whether alloparental brood care provided by subordinates is contingent on enforcement by dominant breeders. We manipulated first the brood care behavior of a subordinate group member and then the possibility of the dominant breeders to punish idle helpers. When subordinates were prevented from providing brood care, breeders increased their attacks on them, which triggered increased alloparental brood care by helpers as soon as this was again possible. In contrast, when the possibility to punish helpers was prevented, energetically costly alloparental brood care did not increase. Our results confirm predictions of the pay-to-stay mechanism causing alloparental care in this species and they suggest more generally that coercion can play an important role in the control of cooperation.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Behavioural Ecology 08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) |
UniBE Contributor: |
Zöttl, Markus, Schreier, Tanja, Taborsky, Michael |
Subjects: |
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology) 500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology |
ISSN: |
1045-2249 |
Publisher: |
Oxford University Press |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Pubmed Import |
Date Deposited: |
17 May 2023 13:53 |
Last Modified: |
17 May 2023 14:02 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1093/beheco/arac125 |
PubMed ID: |
37192918 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Neolamprologus pulcher coercion cooperative breeding negotiation pay-to-stay punishment |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/182645 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/182645 |
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