Sexual selection and parental care: towards a synthesis

• Applicant: Dr. Sebastian Alexander Baldauf
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology
• Term: from 2011 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 202787036

Sexual selection theory and parental care theory are well-established theories in behavioural sciences that deal with the adaptive significance of mating and parental strategies respectively. Both theories have been developed independently. However, theoretical arguments and empirical evidence strongly suggest that there is a strong interaction between mating decisions on the one hand and parental care decisions on the other. In males, there is often a trade-off between attractiveness and paternal quality. Females should respond to these trade-offs and conditional strategies, e.g., by anticipating that attractive males might show a reduced paternal effort. Here, I aim to investigate the joint evolution of mating and parental strategies in both males and females. A series of evolutionary models of increasing complexity will be developed. First, I determine the optimal male strategies in case of fixed female preferences. Second, I study the evolution of female preferences when both indirect (“good genes”) and direct (“paternal care”) benefits are at stake. Third, I will consider mutual mate choice and complementarity of paternal and maternal care strategies. Additionally, the model predictions will be compared with experimental data from a database on mating and parental behaviour of the biparental and socially monogamous cichlid fish Pelvicachromis taeniatus.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Host: Professor Dr. Franz Josef Weissing