A General Model for Parental Care

Abstract

This model provides a general framework for analyzing the effects of a relatively large number of variables on quantitative variation in parental care. On the assumption that natural selection favors parents that maximize their reproductive value in each of many time intervals throughout a breeding attempt, the model predicts optimal parental responses to variation in age and number of offspring, time since the beginning of the breeding season, effort of the mate, and parental condition. This list of independent variables can easily be expanded or restricted within the framework of the model. Although the model is developed here for biparental monogamous species, it serves as the foundation for applications to other mating systems and for the addition or subtraction of variables to which the parents respond.