Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Splendid Fairy-wrens: demonstrating the importance of longevity
- 2 Green Woodhoopoes: life history traits and sociality
- 3 Red-cockaded Woodpeckers: a ‘primitive’ cooperative breeder
- 4 Arabian Babblers: the quest for social status in a cooperative breeder
- 5 Hoatzins: cooperative breeding in a folivorous neotropical bird
- 6 Campylorhynchus wrens: the ecology of delayed dispersal and cooperation in the Venezuelan savanna
- 7 Pinyon Jays: making the best of a bad situation by helping
- 8 Florida Scrub Jays: a synopsis after 18 years of study
- 9 Mexican Jays: uncooperative breeding
- 10 Galápagos mockingbirds: territorial cooperative breeding in a climatically variable environment
- 11 Groove-billed Anis: joint-nesting in a tropical cuckoo
- 12 Galápagos and Harris' Hawks: divergent causes of sociality in two raptors
- 13 Pukeko: different approaches and some different answers
- 14 Acorn Woodpeckers: group-living and food storage under contrasting ecological conditions
- 15 Dunnocks: cooperation and conflict among males and females in a variable mating system
- 16 White-fronted Bee-eaters: helping in a colonially nesting species
- 17 Pied Kingfishers: ecological causes and reproductive consequences of cooperative breeding
- 18 Noisy Miners: variations on the theme of communality
- Summary
- Index
Summary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Splendid Fairy-wrens: demonstrating the importance of longevity
- 2 Green Woodhoopoes: life history traits and sociality
- 3 Red-cockaded Woodpeckers: a ‘primitive’ cooperative breeder
- 4 Arabian Babblers: the quest for social status in a cooperative breeder
- 5 Hoatzins: cooperative breeding in a folivorous neotropical bird
- 6 Campylorhynchus wrens: the ecology of delayed dispersal and cooperation in the Venezuelan savanna
- 7 Pinyon Jays: making the best of a bad situation by helping
- 8 Florida Scrub Jays: a synopsis after 18 years of study
- 9 Mexican Jays: uncooperative breeding
- 10 Galápagos mockingbirds: territorial cooperative breeding in a climatically variable environment
- 11 Groove-billed Anis: joint-nesting in a tropical cuckoo
- 12 Galápagos and Harris' Hawks: divergent causes of sociality in two raptors
- 13 Pukeko: different approaches and some different answers
- 14 Acorn Woodpeckers: group-living and food storage under contrasting ecological conditions
- 15 Dunnocks: cooperation and conflict among males and females in a variable mating system
- 16 White-fronted Bee-eaters: helping in a colonially nesting species
- 17 Pied Kingfishers: ecological causes and reproductive consequences of cooperative breeding
- 18 Noisy Miners: variations on the theme of communality
- Summary
- Index
Summary
Cooperation between the sexes in the rearing of offspring is rare in the animal kingdom, but typical of most species of birds. The usual form of cooperation in birds is for the male and female of a monogamous pair to invest more or less equally in the defense of a breeding area and in the care of young. Thus, most species of birds are cooperative breeders, but this cooperation is limited strictly to the breeding pair, and other conspecifics are vigorously excluded from the vicinity of the nest and young. I therefore use the term ‘cooperative breeding’ in the restricted sense used elsewhere in this book (see Introduction to this volume).
My perspective in this summary is that of a student of the behavior and population biology of typical birds, i.e. those that cooperate only with a mate while reproducing. Thus, I approach the subject without biases from having worked on a cooperatively breeding species. I first review briefly some questions about cooperative breeders, and the kinds of data that are needed to address them. I then consider how far these questions have been answered by the studies in the book. I conclude by noting that studies of cooperative breeders have enhanced our general understanding of the population biology of birds, and I suggest some directions for future work.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cooperative Breeding in BirdsLong Term Studies of Ecology and Behaviour, pp. 593 - 612Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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