Details

Category: 
Student subject
Department: 
Animal Ecology
Visser Group
Closing date: 
Monday 4 November 2019

Parental care is a behaviour that has likely evolved to increase fitness of both offspring and parents (through their offspring). Thus, parental care is expected to be under sexual selection, especially in socially monogamous species where both parents provide care for offspring. In this project, we will use published literature and datasets to study whether parental care is a repeatable behaviour within socially monogamous species, using meta-analysis and a meta-regression approach. The main questions this project aims to answer are:

  • Is there evidence that parental care is repeatable across species?
  • What influences the differences in repeatability of parental care? We will consider factors such as sex, age, individual condition or familiarity between partners.
  • Is there evidence that parental care is heritable? (provided that enough data exist on this topic)

The duration of the project is expected to be 6 months and the project will be based at Netherlands institute of Ecology, under the supervision of Dr. Antica Culina and Dr. Camilla Hinde. For more information contact Antica Culina