Helping is costly to young birds in cooperatively breeding white-winged choughs

Abstract

Restricted accessMoreSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Cite this article Heinsohn Robert and Cockburn Andrew 1994Helping is costly to young birds in cooperatively breeding white-winged choughsProc. R. Soc. Lond. B.256293–298http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1994.0083SectionRestricted accessArticleHelping is costly to young birds in cooperatively breeding white-winged choughs Robert Heinsohn Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author and Andrew Cockburn Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Robert Heinsohn Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author and Andrew Cockburn Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for more papers by this author Published:22 June 1994https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1994.0083AbstractCooperative breeding among birds is at its most extreme in white-winged choughs (Corcorax melanorhamphos). Choughs have never been observed to breed successfully without helpers, and reproductive success increases linearly across all group sizes (maximum = 16). Further, helpers contribute to every aspect of reproduction, including nest building and incubation. Here we show that the contribution of young helpers (one year old and less) to incubation depends on the group in which they live. In small groups (3-5 birds), young helpers contribute as much to incubation as older birds, but in large groups they contribute little. In large groups, help increases sharply with age. Old birds contribute equally, regardless of group size. Although choughs generally do not lose body mass over incubation, young helpers lose mass in proportion to the amount of incubation they perform, independent of any effect of group size. This provides evidence that helpers in cooperatively breeding birds suffer costs from providing help additional to the costs incurred from remaining philopatric. It also demonstrates that the needs of the group influence whether young birds provide help.FootnotesThis text was harvested from a scanned image of the original document using optical character recognition (OCR) software. As such, it may contain errors. Please contact the Royal Society if you find an error you would like to see corrected. Mathematical notations produced through Infty OCR. Previous ArticleNext Article VIEW FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD PDF FiguresRelatedReferencesDetailsCited by Smith M and Riehl C (2022) Workload Distribution and Division of Labor in Cooperative Societies, The Quarterly Review of Biology, 10.1086/721520, 97:3, (183-210), Online publication date: 1-Sep-2022. Little J, Rubenstein D and Guindre-Parker S (2022) Plasticity in social behaviour varies with reproductive status in an avian cooperative breeder, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 289:1974, Online publication date: 11-May-2022. Nichols H and Arbuckle K (2022) A case of cooperative breeding in the European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris , Ecology and Evolution, 10.1002/ece3.8318, 12:2, Online publication date: 1-Feb-2022. 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This Issue22 June 1994Volume 256Issue 1347 Article InformationDOI:https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1994.0083Published by:Royal SocietyPrint ISSN:0962-8452Online ISSN:1471-2954History: Manuscript received11/03/1994Manuscript accepted23/03/1994Published online01/01/1997Published in print22/06/1994 License:Scanned images copyright © 2017, Royal Society Citations and impact Large datasets are available through Proceedings B's partnership with Dryad