Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
Science. 2010 Mar 12;327(5971):1373-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1186056.
The evolution of family life has traditionally been studied in parallel by behavioral ecologists and quantitative geneticists. The former focus on parent-offspring conflict and whether parents or offspring control provisioning, whereas the latter concentrate on the coadaptation of parental supply and offspring demand. Here we show how prenatal effects on offspring begging can link the two different approaches. Using theoretical and experimental analyses, we show that when offspring control provisioning, prenatal effects primarily serve the parent's interests: Selection on parents drives coadaptation of parent and offspring traits. In contrast, when parents control provisioning, prenatal effects primarily serve the offspring's interests: Selection on the offspring drives coadaptation of parent and offspring traits. Parent-offspring conflict may thus be responsible for the selective forces that generate parent-offspring coadaptation.
家庭生活的演变传统上是由行为生态学家和数量遗传学家并行研究的。前者关注亲代-后代冲突，以及是父母还是后代控制供应，而后者则专注于父母供应和后代需求的共同适应。在这里，我们展示了产前效应对后代乞食的影响如何将这两种不同的方法联系起来。通过理论和实验分析，我们表明，当后代控制供应时，产前效应对父母的利益更为重要：父母的选择驱动了父母和后代特征的共同适应。相比之下，当父母控制供应时，产前效应对后代的利益更为重要：后代的选择驱动了父母和后代特征的共同适应。因此，亲代-后代冲突可能是产生亲代-后代共同适应的选择力的原因。
