Talk:Cooperative breeding

Untitled
For anyone interested in developing this article, I can recommend Sarah Hrdy's Mothers and Others as an excellent book. --MrRedwood (talk) 21:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2020 and 29 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): TanishaT. Peer reviewers: Mjsalnic, NovakLeon, Decampr.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Merge Alloparenting into Cooperative breeding
Since alloparents are the non-parental care givers in cooperative breeding, perhaps the two articles can be merged and the information about alloparenting can be described sufficiently in the cooperative breeding article. -- Suntag (talk) 17:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The Allomothering article should also be merged. --MrRedwood (talk) 21:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Allomothering should not be merged with "cooperate breeding," but it should have a link to it's page within the article. "Allomothering" is a distinct, anthropological term that entails cooperative breeding, but the focus is more concerned with primatology (the study of past and present primates, including humans) than on all instances in which members of the kingdom animalia collectively care for their young. 75.69.151.248 (talk) ALA —Preceding undated comment added 16:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC).

Birds and helpers at the nest
Cooperative breeding mentions helpers at the nest, but the latter link only appears in the refs. I wonder whether a paper on helpers at the nest fits the article. The relation to helpers at the nest may have been not properly thought about. Perhaps it was thought here ("helpers" appears frequently throughout the article) that helpers at the nest are the same as bird helpers. According to the article on helpers at the nest, on the other hand, the latter term refers to young siblings of the raised individuals and not necessarily to birds. I don't know which is true, but this should be clarified. --Uwe Lück (talk) 14:44, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Predator satiation
This article does not currently mention predator satiation, which is brought up however in the passenger pigeon article. Predator satiation can exist separately from communal breeding, i.e. when some separate breeders flock together with other breeders for benefits at a larger population level, in species without communal breeding. But it seems to me that it is one mechanism by which helpers can obtain benefit from helping other helpers, i.e. even within the lower level of a breeding group a helper benefits from there being more others, similarly to how larger groups have less sentinel behavior requirements per member (which is mentioned in the article). The extent this mechanism operates may be in conflict with other mechanisms that can go on, such as the breeders' need to deliver suppressive behavior to a larger group. I am making this up, reasoning out that predator satiation can have effect within breeding groups, and do not have references. Maybe it has not been shown to be a significant factor in any species. But even if predator satiation does not have effect within breeding groups, it still can be useful to bring up in this article as a strategy that may be correlated with communal breeding as a strategy. I am thinking that the prime example of passenger pigeons is enough to suggest that there is a correlation between communal breeding and predator satiation. I suggest that editors should be alert to note references that support mention of predator satiation within the text of this article. -- do ncr  am  13:10, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Mammals
Aside from primates and meerkats, there are no mention of other mammals on this page. Wolves have alloparenting and helpers, and I suspect there are other mammalian species that do as well. Something to think about and see if information can be found to add them on. MiscGezork (talk) 18:24, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Cross-nursing in humans
Under humans, the article should mention that historically, most human cultures have employed wet nursing, even in cases where mothers breastfed their own babies as well (cross nursing). One notable reference to this in literature, in Augustine’s Confessions, is his mention of receiving milk from both his mother and nurses (chapter 1, section 7). 2607:F0B0:7:833A:B43F:9F52:BBAE:906A (talk) 02:30, 25 September 2023 (UTC)