Who cares? Effect of coping style and social context on brood care and defense in superb fairy-wrens

Abstract

In cooperatively breeding species, a breeding pair is often assisted in brood care by relatives. Group members can assist in both offspring provisioning and nest- and territory defense. It has been hypothesized that task specialization should occur in stable groups to make them more efficient and that individuals should perform tasks best suited to their behavioral phenotype or coping style. Alternatively, individuals may vary in how cooperative they are overall. We tested whether cooperatively breeding superb fairy-wrens ( Malurus cyaneus ) show task division or individual variation in cooperativeness during brood care and territory defense and whether contribution was related to coping sty..