The development of individual differences in cooperative behaviour: maternal glucocorticoid hormones alter helping behaviour of offspring in wild meerkats

Abstract

One contribution of 18 to a theme issue 'Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine'.

Maternal glucocorticoids promote offspring growth without inducing oxidative stress or shortening telomeres in wild red squirrels

“…We included a two-way interaction term between treatment and litter size to identify whether elevations in maternal GCs altered the trade-off between litter size and offspring birth mass, growth or size, as shown previously for offspring growth (Dantzer et al, 2013). We included a two-way interaction between treatment and sex to assess whether the treatments had sex-specific effects on birth mass, growth and size, as documented in other species (Dantzer et al, 2019). In our model for the effects of the treatments on offspring birth mass, we included a fixed effect for age of the pups to control for the impact of age on body mass.…”

Prenatal environmental conditions underlie alternative reproductive tactics that drive the formation of a mixed-kin cooperative society

“…Studies of two other avian species, western bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) and great tits (Parus major), found an effect of maternal androgen deposition on offspring dispersal in response to ecological conditions (Duckworth, 2009;Tschirren et al, 2007). Viviparous lizards (Lacerta vivipara) show a similar effect (Meylan et al, 2002), and maternal hormones have also been shown to increase helping behavior in subordinate female meerkats (Suricata suricatta) (Dantzer et al, 2019). Further work in this and other cooperatively breeding species should examine the mechanism by which environmentally-mediated parental effects might influence future reproductive tactics adopted by offspring.…”

“…Male superb starlings are more likely to become alloparents and help more than females (Rubenstein, 2011), and alloparents buffer the detrimental effects of harsh environmental conditions on reproductive success in this species (Guindre-Parker and Rubenstein, 2018). Thus, prenatal parental effects promoting alloparental behavior following harsher prenatal conditions might serve to selfishly increase the parents' short-term future reproductive success and indirectly limit dispersal of male offspring (Dantzer et al, 2019).…”

“…The influence of prenatal factors typically manifests via parental effects, modifications provided by the mother or father to the offspring during development that alter offspring phenotype (Mousseau and Fox, 1998). Parental effects may be particularly important in cooperatively breeding species (Russell and Lummaa, 2009), where parents can limit offspring dispersal by influencing helping behavior or promote dispersal to reduce kin competition (Dantzer et al, 2019;Duckworth, 2009;Silk and Brown, 2008). Although dispersal in most social species tends to be sex-biased (Greenwood and Harvey, 1982), in many cooperative breeders, individuals of one sex can adopt either of two alternative reproductive tactics: natal dispersal or philopatry (Davidian et al, 2016;Nelson-Flower et al, 2018).…”

Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine

“…They offer a way to measure the fitness impacts of variation in early life conditions, and test evolutionary hypotheses about the causes and consequences of developmental responses. Dantzer et al [52] show that a manipulation of early-life maternal hormone exposure affects later-life cooperative behaviour in a female, but not male, meerkats (Suricatta suricatta). Their findings suggest that these earlylife effects may be in the interests of parents, but not offspring.…”