Beyond parental care: The other facets of family life

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Why is it important?

There are two major problems with the way parental care is commonly studied: first, parental care is typically investigated in species with complex/derived family life (e.g. mammals, birds and eusocial insects), while systems with simple/ancestral forms of family life (e.g. many 'subsocial' insects such as earwigs and burying beetles) are neglected. Second, parental care is typically studied from a 'synchronic' perspective that focuses on the current benefits and costs of care, and thus neglects how the fitness effects of care changed over evolutionary times.

Perspectives