SynthesisProceedings. Biological sciences2020
The costs and benefits of paternal care in fish: a meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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.
The trial behind it
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
17 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Benefits and costs of female and male care in amphibians: a meta-analytical approach.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Pooled it
- The costs and benefits of paternal care in fish: a meta-analysis.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Pooled it
- Contrasting life-history strategies of three sympatric icefish species in the northern Scotia Sea.Journal of fish biology · 2026Article
- Lineage-specific decoupling of arginine vasotocin-evoked aggression in male darters (Percidae: Etheostomatinae).Hormones and behavior · 2026Article
- Behavioural ecology in the twenty-first century.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Review
- Reproductive Strategies in Paternal Care and Remarkably Low Paternity Level in a Giant Water Bug.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Evolutionary trade-offs between testes size and parenting in Neotropical glassfrogs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- The effects of maternal care on the developmental transcriptome and metatranscriptome of a wild bee.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Long-term environmental stability does not erode plasticity in nest building responses to changing ambient conditions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Extensive parental care experience of male seahorses increases their future mating attractiveness.Current zoology · 2023Article
- Article
- Diverse parentage relationships in paternal mouthbrooding fishes.Biology letters · 2022Article
- The comparative energetics of the ray-finned fish in an evolutionary context.Conservation physiology · 2022Article
- The interplay between sperm-mediated and care-mediated paternal effects in threespine sticklebacks.Animal behaviour · 2021Article
- Visual cues elicit differential aggression towards female and female mimics in the corkwing wrasse.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
- Single fathers sacrifice their broods and re-mate quickly in a socially monogamous cichlid.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Male-only parental care, while rare in most animals, is a widespread strategy within teleost fish. The costs and benefits to males of acting as sole carer are highly variable among fish species making it challenging to determine the selective pressures driving the evolution of male-only care to such a high prevalence. We conducted a phylogenetic meta-analysis to examine the costs and benefits of paternal care across fish species. We found no evidence that providing care negatively affects male condition. In contrast with other taxa, we also found limited evidence that male care has evolved as a strategy to improve offspring survival. Instead, we found that males already caring for a brood are preferred by females and that this preference is strongest in those species in which males work harder to care for larger broods. Thus, in fish, investment in offspring care does not constrain a male's mating success but rather augments it, suggesting that the relatively high prevalence of male-only care in fish may be in part explained by sexual selection through female preference for caring males.
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Registered trials
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