Brood care

Brood care is behavior that protects, feeds, or otherwise supports an animal’s developing offspring, from eggs to independent young. It ranges from guarding eggs to prolonged feeding and teaching.

Parental investment: An organism’s allocation of resources or effort to offspring at a cost to its ability to invest elsewhere. Brood care is a behavioral form of investment that can trade off against future reproduction.
Kin selection: Natural selection favoring traits that increase the reproductive success of genetic relatives. Care can benefit shared genes even when helpers are not the parents.
Paternal care: Care of offspring provided by their father, either alone or alongside the mother. Male care is prominent in several fish, amphibians, and birds.
Parent–offspring communication: Signals exchanged between parents and offspring that influence care and offspring behavior. Begging and recognition signals help coordinate the delivery of care.
Sexual conflict: Evolutionary conflict between the sexes over traits that affect their reproductive success. Parents may differ in how much care each should provide or how long it should last.
Egg incubation: The maintenance of conditions needed for an embryo to develop inside an egg. Incubation keeps developing eggs within viable temperature and humidity ranges.
Inclusive fitness: An individual’s genetic success through its own reproduction and its effects on relatives’ reproduction. It accounts for how care of relatives can be favored by selection.
Cooperative breeding: A social system in which individuals help raise young produced by other group members. Helpers extend care beyond the offspring’s parents.
Sibling rivalry: Competition among siblings for resources, attention, or survival. Unequal access to parental food and protection can intensify competition within broods.
Operational sex ratio: The ratio of sexually available males to sexually available females in a population. Who is available to mate can influence which sex provides care.

Linked from 8 pages