Parental Care: Evolution, Mechanisms, And Adaptive Significance

Book excerpt: Advances in the Study of Behavior presents its first thematic volume, focusing on the physiological and behavioral mechanisms underlying parental care. The book discusses parental care both within and across taxa, with coverage of invertebrates and early vertebrates, fishes, amphibia, reptiles, mammals, birds, and nonhuman primates. A running theme throughout the chapters shows that parental care is anchored to the ecology, reproductive physiology, and embryonic development of a species. Coverage also includes mechanisms of parental care, including analysis of the stimuli that parents respond to and how parental care is initiated, maintained, and terminated. Individual differences within species are also explored, examining stable differences in maternal style, how they arise, and the consequences for both mother and infant.