10.5061/DRYAD.56SQ32K
Koykka, Cody
Western University
Wild, Geoff
Western University
Data from: The influence of environmental variance on the evolution of
signalling behavior
Dryad
dataset
2018
signals
parent-offspring conflict
Environmental variation
offspring begging
2018-04-23T18:12:22Z
2018-04-23T18:12:22Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/ary072
4577 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
A recent meta-analysis has indicated that environmental quality and
variability can influence whether offspring begging and parental responses
to these signals are motivated by offspring need or offspring quality. We
create a model to verify and apply evolutionary logic to this hypothesis.
We determine the ecological and social conditions under which species
signal and respond to need in favorable environments, and to quality in
poor environments. The environmental conditions that favor this shift are
widest when signalling costs and differences in quality between offspring
are moderate. Low relatedness between siblings coupled with high
signalling costs, as well as moderate relatedness between siblings coupled
with low signalling costs, allow for the shift between signals of need and
signals of quality to occur in more volatile environments. Further, only
species whose offspring are highly dependent on parents for survival are
not expected to use both signals of need and of quality. Ultimately, this
shift between signalling need and signalling quality is the result of
high-quality offspring benefiting more from meagre amounts of parental
provisioning, while low-quality offspring have most to gain when parents
can contribute more substantially. We show that this differential benefit
of resources depends substantially upon offspring fitness as functions of
parental investments, a variable which has lacked both diversity and
biological realism in previous theoretical approaches. We then use this
work to reassess previous theory on signals of need and of quality.
Matlab CodeThis Matlab script finds the minimum and maximum resources
necessary in both good and poor environments necessary for the stability
of the equilibrium of interest for a given set of parameter conditions. It
plots the relevant region of stability.WithoutCues_DivisbleResources3.m