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Does a trade‐off between current reproductive success and survival affect the honesty of male signalling in species with male parental care?
Author(s) -
KELLY N. B.,
ALONZO S. H.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02111.x
Subject(s) - biology , paternal care , reproduction , offspring , affect (linguistics) , honesty , parental investment , investment (military) , demography , ecology , social psychology , psychology , pregnancy , genetics , communication , sociology , politics , political science , law
Recent theory predicted that male advertisement will reliably signal investment in paternal care in species where offspring survival requires paternal care and males allocate resources between advertisement and care. However, the predicted relationship between care and advertisement depended on the marginal gains from investment in current reproductive traits. Life history theory suggests that these fitness gains are also subject to a trade‐off between current and future reproduction. Here, we investigate whether male signalling remains a reliable indicator of parental care when males allocate resources between current advertisement, paternal care and survival to future reproduction. We find that advertisement is predicted to remain a reliable signal of male care but that advertisement may cease to reliably indicate male quality because low‐quality males are predicted to invest in current reproduction, whereas higher‐quality males are able to invest in both current reproduction and survival to future reproduction.