Symposium number: 06

Title: INFORMATION AND POWER: HOW ARE CONFLICTS AT THE NEST RESOLVED?

Principal organizer: Rebecca Kilner
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
email: rmk1002@hermes.cam.ac.uk

Second organizer: Hugh Drummond
Instituto de Ecologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, AP 70-275, 04510 D. F., Mexico

First keynote speaker: Rebecca Kilner
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
Title of first keynote paper: The use and abuse of information in conflict resolution at the nest

Second keynote speaker: Hugh Drummond
Instituto de Ecologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, AP 70-275, 04510 D. F., Mexico
Title of second keynote paper: Aggression in avian broods: From lethal violence to rotating roles

Contributed talks

Symposium description: Evolutionary conflicts of interest within the family arise when family members disagree over the optimal division of parental investment. In theory, conflicts should be commonplace, yet evidence of their existence in nature is scarce. One theoretical explanation is that the conflicts have long been resolved, concealing any disparity in parental investment optima.
This symposium will consider how conflicts at the nest might be resolved in practice. Our theme is that conflict resolution depends on the balance of physical power within the family and the control of information about the costs and benefits of parental investment. We will explore the extent to which both parents and young control information and power within the family in a range of avian taxa, including brood parasites. For example, parents are more physically powerful than their young, and can also determine levels of investment in each sex or each egg. But some offspring overpower their brood-mates, even killing them, so influencing their success at obtaining food. Similarly, offspring have private information about the benefits they stand to gain from parental investment, which they may advertise with their begging display. Yet parents have better information than their young about the quantity of care on offer after hatching, which they may choose to signal through differential hormonal deposition in the egg.

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