Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Decisions about parental care in response to perceived paternity

Abstract

Evolutionary ecologists are attempting to explain how parents make behavioural decisions about how much care to provide to their young1,2,3,4. Theory predicts that when genetic relatedness to young is decreased by cuckoldry, for example, parents should reduce their care in favour of alternative broods that provide greater reproductive success5,6,7. Experimental manipulation of perceived paternity has been used to test the theory8,9, but such studies have generated mixed results10,11,12,13. Some manipulations can fail to alter a parent's perceived paternity14, whereas others may directly affect parental behaviour when, for instance, the manipulation involves capturing the parent15,16,17,18. No study has demonstrated parental care adjustment in a manner uncomplicated by experimental design or life history correlates. Here I test the theory using the fact that nest-tending parental male bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus) can assess their paternity using both the visual presence of parasitic cuckolder males during spawning19, and olfactory cues released by newly hatched eggs20,21. By manipulating both types of cues I show that parental males dynamically adjust their parental care, favouring broods that are apparently most closely related. These results confirm the importance of genetic relatedness in parental care decision-making.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Parental care by control and treatment parental male bluegill.
Figure 2: Changes in parental care by control and treatment parental male bluegill.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Westneat, D. F. & Sargent, R. C. Sex and parenting: the effects of sexual conflict and parentage on parental strategies. Trends Ecol. Evol. 11, 87–91 (1996)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Sargent, R. C. & Gross, M. R. in The Behaviour of Teleost Fishes (ed. Pitcher, T. J.) 275–293 (Chapman & Hall, New York, 1993)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Burke, T., Davies, N. B., Bruford, M. W. & Hatchwell, B. J. Parental care and mating behaviour of polyandrous dunnocks Prunella modularis related to paternity by DNA fingerprinting. Nature 338, 249–251 (1989)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Dixon, A., Ross, D., Omalley, S. L. C. & Burke, T. Paternal investment inversely related to degree of extra-pair paternity in the reed bunting. Nature 371, 698–700 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Trivers, R. L. in Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man (ed. Campbell, B.) 136–179 (Aldine, Chicago, 1972)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Westneat, D. F. & Sherman, P. W. Parentage and the evolution of parental behavior. Behav. Ecol. 4, 66–77 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Kokko, H. Cuckoldry and the stability of biparental care. Ecol. Lett. 2, 247–255 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Lessells, C. M. in Behavioural Ecology: an Evolutionary Approach (eds Krebs, J. R. & Davies, N. B.) 32–68 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1991)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Kempenaers, B. & Sheldon, B. C. Studying paternity and parental care: pitfalls and problems. Anim. Behav. 53, 423–427 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Kempenaers, B., Lanctot, R. B. & Robertson, R. J. Certainty of paternity and paternal investment in eastern bluebirds and tree swallows. Anim. Behav. 55, 845–860 (1998)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. MacDougall-Shackleton, E. A. & Robertson, R. J. Confidence of paternity and paternal care by eastern bluebirds. Behav. Ecol. 9, 201–205 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Sheldon, B. C. & Ellegren, H. Paternal effort related to experimentally manipulated paternity of male collared flycatchers. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 265, 1737–1742 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Hunt, J. & Simmons, L. W. Confidence of paternity and paternal care: covariation revealed through the experimental manipulation of the mating system in the beetle Onthophagus taurus. J. Evol. Biol. 15, 784–795 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Neff, B. D. & Sherman, P. W. Decision making and recognition mechanisms. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 269, 1435–1441 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Jamieson, I. G. & Quinn, J. S. Problems with removal experiments designed to test the relationship between paternity and parental effort in a socially polyandrous bird. Auk 114, 291–295 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Wright, J. in Sperm Competition and Sexual Selection (eds Birkhead, T. R. & Møller, A. P.) 117–145 (Academic, London, 1998)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  17. Kokko, H. & McRae, S. B. Take care when studying parenting behaviour. Trends Ecol. Evol. 15, 440–441 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Sheldon, B. C. Relating paternity to paternal care. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 357, 341–350 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Neff, B. D. & Gross, M. R. Dynamic adjustment of parental care in response to perceived paternity. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 268, 1559–1565 (2001)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Neff, B. D. & Sherman, P. W. Nestling recognition via direct cues by parental male bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus). Anim. Cogn. (in the press)

  21. Neff, B. D. & Sherman, P. W. Kin recognition via self-referencing by a fish with paternal care and cuckoldry. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B (submitted)

  22. Dominey, W. J. Female mimicry in male bluegill sunfish—a genetic polymorphism? Nature 284, 546–548 (1980)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  23. Gross, M. R. Sneakers, satellites and parental males: polymorphic mating strategies in North American sunfishes. Z. Tierpsychol. 60, 1–26 (1982)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Coleman, R. M. & Fischer, R. U. Brood size, male fanning effort and the energetics of a non-shareable parental investment in bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus (Teleostei: Centrarchidae). Ethology 87, 177–188 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Cargnelli, L. M. & Gross, M. R. The temporal dimension in fish recruitment: birth date, body size, and size-dependent survival in a sunfish (bluegill: Lepomis macrochirus). Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 53, 360–367 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Fu, P., Neff, B. D. & Gross, M. R. Tactic-specific success in sperm competition. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 268, 1105–1112 (2001)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Brown, G. E. & Brown, J. A. Kin discrimination in salmonids. Rev. Fish Biol. Fish. 6, 201–219 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Neff, B. D. Genetic paternity analysis and breeding success in bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus). J. Hered. 92, 111–119 (2001)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank L. M. Cargnelli, M. R. Gross, E. A. MacDougall-Shackleton, J. D. Olden, T. E. Pitcher and P. W. Sherman, and H. Kokko, J. D. Reynolds and B. C. Sheldon for comments on this work. I am indebted to P. Fu for providing field assistance. This work was conducted at the Queen's University Biological Station and conformed to protocols outlined by the Canadian Council on Animal Care. The research was supported by the Sigma Xi and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bryan D. Neff.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares that he has no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Neff, B. Decisions about parental care in response to perceived paternity. Nature 422, 716–719 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01528

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01528

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing