ECU Libraries Catalog

Blue-footed boobies : sibling conflict and sexual infidelity on a tropical island / Hugh Drummond.

Author/creator Drummond, Hugh, 1947-
Other author/creatorOxford University Press.
Format Electronic and Book
Publication InfoNew York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
Descriptionpages cm
Supplemental Content Full text available from Oxford Scholarship Online
Supplemental Content Full text available from Oxford Scholarship Online Biology
Subject(s)
Portion of title Sibling conflict and sexual infidelity on a tropical island
Contents Two Approaches to Controlling and Killing Siblings -- Beating Siblings into Submission -- From Wild Violence to Courtly Rituals -- To Kill or Not to Kill -- Are Parents Okay with Sibling Bullying? -- Bullying and Lifelong Scars -- Happy Marriages with Blue Feet -- Cheating, Infanticide and Egg Dumping -- Are Humans Similar?
Abstract "Aggressive competition between sibling chicks differs between blue-footed and brown boobies. In a brood of two blue-foot chicks, the senior one (four days older) maintains dominance over the three-month nestling period by daily low-level attacking, ensuring privileged growth and survival for itself by limiting junior's begging and feeding. Both blue-foot siblings often survive and fledge, but when parents provide insufficient food, senior increases its aggression and junior starves to death or gets killed by adult neighbors while seeking adoption in their nests. In contrast, brown booby parents bring less food to their broods and their senior chicks are unconditionally intolerant and violent; they attack their sibling at every opportunity and toss it out of the nest, to certain death. The behavioral roles of booby family members - including conditional sharing, siblicide, and parental passivity - are explained by Hamilton's theory of inclusive fitness and kin selection, which also applies to humans"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Access restrictionAvailable only to authorized users.
Technical detailsMode of access: World Wide Web
Genre/formElectronic books.
LCCN 2023004674
ISBN9780197629840 (hardback)
ISBN(epub)

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