Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Evolução e Biodiversidade, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Estadual Paulista "Júlio de Mesquita Filho", Rio Claro, São Paulo, 13506-900, Brazil.
Laboratorio de Biología Evolutiva, Colegio de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales COCIBA, Instituto Biósfera USFQ, Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, Cumbayá, Ecuador.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 14;11(1):1386. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-80771-7.
Parental care is costly, thus theory predicts that parents should avoid caring for unrelated offspring. However, alloparenting has been reported in many taxa because it may increase the caregiver mating success or offspring survival. We experimentally investigated the existence of allopaternal care in two glassfrog species, Hyalinobatrachium chirripoi and Centrolene peristicta, and discussed possible costs and benefits. Males mated with multiple females and cared for clutches, while continued to call. In the field, we randomly placed unrelated clutches in the territory of males already caring for their clutches and in the territory of non-attending males. Attending males adopted unrelated clutches, whereas non-attending males abandoned their territories. Once males adopted unrelated offspring, they cared for all clutches in a similar frequency and gained new clutches. Alloparenting was context-dependent, as only males already caring for their clutches adopted unrelated ones. We suggest that steroid hormonal levels might mediate the adoption of unrelated offspring by attending males. Additionally, our results suggest that males do not directly discriminate between related and unrelated offspring. Alloparenting has been widely investigated in different vertebrates, except for amphibians. Thus, our study sheds light on the roles of alloparenting for offspring survival and mating success in this group.
亲代照顾是有代价的，因此理论预测父母应该避免照顾无关的后代。然而，许多分类群都报告了同种异亲抚育，因为它可以提高照顾者的交配成功率或后代的存活率。我们通过实验调查了两种玻璃蛙（Hyalinobatrachium chirripoi 和 Centrolene peristicta）中同种异亲抚育的存在，并讨论了可能的成本和收益。雄性与多个雌性交配并照顾卵群，同时继续鸣叫。在野外，我们随机将无关的卵群放置在已经照顾自己卵群的雄性领地和不参与的雄性领地中。参与的雄性会收养无关的卵群，而不参与的雄性则会放弃自己的领地。一旦雄性收养了无关的后代，它们就会以相似的频率照顾所有的卵群，并获得新的卵群。同种异亲抚育是有条件的，因为只有已经照顾自己卵群的雄性才会收养无关的卵群。我们认为，类固醇激素水平可能介导了参与雄性对无关后代的收养。此外，我们的结果表明，雄性不会直接区分亲代和非亲代的后代。同种异亲抚育在不同的脊椎动物中得到了广泛的研究，除了两栖动物。因此，我们的研究揭示了同种异亲抚育在该类群中对后代生存和交配成功率的作用。
