ArticleNature communications2016
Male care and life history traits in mammals.
Article in Nature communications, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 82 citations in OpenAlex.
- The evolution of negotiation strategies diversifies parental cooperation.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Burying beetles as a model organism to study sex differences in parental care.Insectes sociaux · 2025Review
- Maternal care leads to the evolution of long, slow lives.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Quantifying maternal investment in mammals using allometry.Communications biology · 2024Article
- The evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour in mammals.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Fur removal promotes an earlier expression of involution-related genes in mammary gland of lactating mice.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2023Article
- The reproductive ecology drivers of egg attendance in amphibians.Ecology letters · 2022Article
- Introduction, spread, and impacts of invasive alien mammal species in Europe.Mammal review · 2022Review
- Terrestrial reproduction and parental care drive rapid evolution in the trade-off between offspring size and number across amphibians.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Is degree of sociality associated with reproductive senescence? A comparative analysis across birds and mammals.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Flipping the parental switch: from killing to caring in male mammals.Animal behaviour · 2020Article
- The evolution of parental care diversity in amphibians.Nature communications · 2019Article
- The expendable male hypothesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Parental care and the evolution of terrestriality in frogs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Unravelling the macro-evolutionary ecology of fish-jellyfish associations: life in the 'gingerbread house'.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Photoresponsiveness affects life history traits but not oxidative status in a seasonal rodent.Frontiers in zoology · 2019Article
- Female Chemical Signalling Underlying Reproduction in Mammals.Journal of chemical ecology · 2018Review
- Review
- Live bearing promotes the evolution of sociality in reptiles.Nature communications · 2017Article
- Sperm competition games when males invest in paternal care.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Male care has energetic and opportunity costs, and is more likely to evolve when males gain greater certainty of paternity or when future mating opportunities are scarce. However, little is known about the substantial benefits that males may provide to females and offspring. Using phylogenetic comparative methods and a sample of over 500 mammalian species, we show that mammals in which males carry the offspring have shorter lactation periods, which leads to more frequent breeding events. Provisioning the female is associated with larger litters and shorter lactation. Offspring of species with male care have similar weaning mass to those without despite being supported by a shorter lactation period, implying that they grow faster. We propose that males provide an energetic contribution during the most expensive time of female reproduction, lactation, and that different male care behaviours increase female fecundity, which in turn helps males offset the costs of caring.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.