Data from: Offspring dynamics affect food provisioning, growth and mortality in a brood-caring spider
Data files
Dec 09, 2014 version files 138.53 KB
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Female Hunting Success.xlsx
12.91 KB
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MASTER_FEMALEandOFFSPRINGmass.xlsb
11.63 KB
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MATRIPHAGY mass change.xlsx
9.15 KB
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README_for_Female Hunting Success.docx
14.35 KB
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README_for_MASTER_FEMALEandOFFSPRINGmass.docx
16.69 KB
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README_for_MATRIPHAGY mass change.docx
15.56 KB
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README_for_SurvivalFemaleProportionalHAZARD.docx
15.95 KB
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README_for_SurvivalOffspring_GEE_for DRYAD.docx
16.26 KB
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SurvivalFemaleProportionalHAZARD.xlsb
8.80 KB
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SurvivalOffspring_GEE_for DRYAD.xlsb
17.23 KB
Abstract
In brood-caring species, family members are faced with a conflict over resource distribution. While parents are selected to adapt the amount of care according to their offspring's needs, offspring might be selected to demand more care than optimal for parents. Recent studies on birds have shown that the social network structure of offspring affects the amount of care and thus the fitness of families. Such a network structure of repeated interactions is probably influenced by within-brood relatedness. We experimentally manipulated the group composition in a brood-caring spider to test how the presence of unrelated spiderlings affects the dynamics between female and brood as well as within broods. Broods consisting of siblings grew better and had a lower mortality compared with mixed broods, no matter whether the caring female was a genetic or foster mother. Interestingly, we found that foster mothers lost weight when caring for sibling broods, whereas females caring for mixed broods gained weight. This indicates that females may be willing to share more prey when the brood contains exclusively siblings even if the entire brood is unrelated to the female. Resource distribution may thus be negotiated by offspring dynamics that could have a signalling function to females.