ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Live long and prosper: durable benefits of early-life care in banded mongooses.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Sex-Dependent Influence of Major Histocompatibility Complex Diversity on Fitness in a Social Mammal.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Strategic use of male alternative reproductive tactics in cooperatively breeding banded mongoose groups.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Lifetime trajectories of male mating effort under reproductive conflict in a cooperatively breeding mammal.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Predator-induced transgenerational plasticity of parental care behaviour in male three-spined stickleback fish across two generations.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Small increases in ambient temperature reduce offspring body mass in an equatorial mammal.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Caregiver's cognitive traits are associated with pup fitness in a cooperatively breeding mammal.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Mechanisms of equality and inequality in mammalian societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The social formation of fitness: lifetime consequences of prenatal nutrition and postnatal care in a wild mammal population.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The interplay between sperm-mediated and care-mediated paternal effects in threespine sticklebacks.Animal behaviour · 2021Article
- Kinship dynamics: patterns and consequences of changes in local relatedness.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Article
- Parental morph combination does not influence innate immune function in nestlings of a colour-polymorphic African raptor.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Epigenomics and gene regulation in mammalian social systems.Current zoology · 2020Article
- The evolution of early-life effects on social behaviour-why should social adversity carry over to the future?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Kin selection theory defines the conditions for which altruism or 'helping' can be favoured by natural selection. Tests of this theory in cooperatively breeding animals have focused on the short-term benefits to the recipients of help, such as improved growth or survival to adulthood. However, research on early-life effects suggests that there may be more durable, lifelong fitness impacts to the recipients of help, which in theory should strengthen selection for helping. Here, we show in cooperatively breeding banded mongooses ( Mungos mungo) that care received in the first 3 months of life has lifelong fitness benefits for both male and female recipients. In this species, adult helpers called 'escorts' form exclusive one-to-one caring relationships with specific pups (not their own offspring), allowing us to isolate the effects of being escorted on later reproduction and survival. Pups that were more closely escorted were heavier at sexual maturity, which was associated with higher lifetime reproductive success for both sexes. Moreover, for female offspring, lifetime reproductive success increased with the level of escorting received per se, over and above any effect on body mass. Our results suggest that early-life social care has durable benefits to offspring of both sexes in this species. Given the well-established developmental effects of early-life care in laboratory animals and humans, we suggest that similar effects are likely to be widespread in social animals more generally. We discuss some of the implications of durable fitness benefits for the evolution of intergenerational helping in cooperative animal societies, including humans. This article is part of the theme issue 'Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine'.
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