Forum for Science, Industry and Business
Sponsored by:     Siemens  n-tv 
Search our Site:

Topic (optional):

 

Home Reports Life Sciences Content

UH Mânoa researcher finds Laysan albatross employs 'dual mommies'

next article
30.05.2008

What's a girl to do if there's a shortage of males and she needs help raising a family? The Laysan albatross employs a strategy called reciprocity, where unrelated females pair together and take turns raising offspring.

 

On the island of Oahu, in Hawaii, 31% of nests are female-female pairs. Female pairs raise fewer chicks than male-female pairs, but given the shortage of males, fewer chicks are better than none. Since albatross can only raise one chick each year, females stay together for multiple years for each to reproduce. This unusual strategy may explain why Laysan Albatross are successfully re-colonizing islands.


...more about:
Albatross Laysan raise ratio

The findings by University of Hawai’i at Mânoa zoology doctoral candidate Lindsay Young, and her co-authors* are published today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters in a paper entitled, “Successful same-sex pairing in Laysan albatross.”

Unrelated same-sex individuals pairing together and cooperating to raise offspring over many years is a rare occurrence in the animal kingdom. Cooperative breeding, in which animals help raise offspring that are not their own, is often attributed to kin selection when individuals are related, or altruism when individuals are unrelated.

The study documents long-term pairing of unrelated female Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) and shows how cooperation may have arisen as a result of a skewed sex ratio in this species. Thirty-one percent of Laysan albatross pairs on Oahu were female-female, and the overall sex ratio was 59% females as a result of female-biased immigration.

Female-female pairs fledged fewer offspring than male-female pairs, but this was a better alternative than not breeding. In most female-female pairs that raised a chick in more than 1 year, at least one offspring was genetically related to each female, indicating that both females had opportunities to reproduce. These results demonstrate how changes in the sex ratio of a population can shift the social structure and cause cooperative behavior to arise in a monogamous species, and they also underscore the importance of genetically sexing monomorphic species.

Lindsay Young | Source: EurekAlert!
Further information: www.hawaii.edu

Further Reports about: Albatross Laysan raise ratio

next article

More articles from Life Sciences:

nachricht Genome sequence for the domestic horse to be unveiled
06.11.2009 | University of California - Davis

nachricht Common plants can eliminate indoor air pollutants
06.11.2009 | American Society for Horticultural Science

All articles from Life Sciences >>>

B2B Search

Product / Service
Company / Organisation

Latest News

Airborne nitrogen shifts aquatic nutrient limitation in pristine lakes

06.11.2009 | Studies and Analyses

Genome sequence for the domestic horse to be unveiled

06.11.2009 | Life Sciences

New Study in Geology Uses Satellite Imagery to Identify Active Magma Systems in East Africa’s Rift Valley

06.11.2009 | Earth Sciences

VideoLinks

Event News

Texas Tech University Hosts Major Textile Conference in India

06.11.2009 | Event News

Brief Highlights of the Fluid Dynamics Conference, Minneapolis

30.10.2009 | Event News

EUROSAFE Forum 2009 Brussels: "Safety Implications of an Increased Demand for Nuclear Energy"

29.10.2009 | Event News