Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Nielsen, Mia Lybkær Kronborg
• Ellis, Samuel
• Weiss, Michael N
• Towers, Jared R
• Doniol-Valcroze, Thomas
• Franks, Daniel W
• Cant, Michael A
• Ellis, Graeme M
• Ford, John K B
• Malleson, Mark
• Sutton, Gary J
• Shaw, Tasli J H
• Balcomb, 3rd, Kenneth C
• Ellifrit, David K
• Croft, Darren P

Titel

Temporal dynamics of mother-offspring relationships in Bigg's killer whales: opportunities for kin-directed help by post-reproductive females

Ist Teil von

• Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences, 2023-06, Vol.290 (2000), p.20230139-20230139

Ort / Verlag

England: The Royal Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Age-related changes in the patterns of local relatedness (kinship dynamics) can be a significant selective force shaping the evolution of life history and social behaviour. In humans and some species of toothed whales, average female relatedness increases with age, which can select for a prolonged post-reproductive lifespan in older females due to both costs of reproductive conflict and benefits of late-life helping of kin. Killer whales ( ) provide a valuable system for exploring social dynamics related to such costs and benefits in a mammal with an extended post-reproductive female lifespan. We use more than 40 years of demographic and association data on the mammal-eating Bigg's killer whale to quantify how mother-offspring social relationships change with offspring age and identify opportunities for late-life helping and the potential for an intergenerational reproductive conflict. Our results suggest a high degree of male philopatry and female-biased budding dispersal in Bigg's killer whales, with some variability in the dispersal rate for both sexes. These patterns of dispersal provide opportunities for late-life helping particularly between mothers and their adult sons, while partly mitigating the costs of mother-daughter reproductive conflict. Our results provide an important step towards understanding why and how menopause has evolved in Bigg's killer whales.