Communal Egg-laying In Reptiles And Amphibians: Evolutionary Patterns And Hypotheses

Communal Egg-laying In Reptiles And Amphibians: Evolutionary Patterns And Hypotheses

Communal egg-laying is widespread among animals, occurring in insects, mollusks, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, just to name a few. While some benefits of communal egg-laying may be pervasive (e.g., it saves time and energy and may ensure the survival of mothers and their offspring), the rem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Quarterly review of biology Vol. 84; no. 3; pp. 229 - 252
Main Authors: Doody, J.Sean, Freedberg, Steve, Keogh, J.Scott
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States The University of Chicago Press 01-09-2009
University of Chicago, acting through its Press
Subjects:
Adaptation, Psychological
Amphibians
Amphibians - classification
Amphibians - physiology
Animal nesting
Animals
Biodiversity
Biology
Bird nesting
Clutch Size
Eggs
Frogs
Game Theory
Genetic Speciation
Lacertilia
Lizards
Maternal Behavior
Mollusca
Nesting Behavior
Nesting sites
Oviposition
Predators
Reptiles
Reptiles & amphibians
Reptiles - classification
Reptiles - physiology
conspecific cueing
egg aggregations
oviposition site choice
evolutionary stable strategy
game theory
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Summary:Communal egg-laying is widespread among animals, occurring in insects, mollusks, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, just to name a few. While some benefits of communal egg-laying may be pervasive (e.g., it saves time and energy and may ensure the survival of mothers and their offspring), the remarkable diversity in the life histories of the animals that exhibit this behavior presents a great challenge to discovering any general explanation. Reptiles and amphibians offer ideal systems for investigating communal egg-laying because they generally lack parental carea simplification that brings nest site choice behavior into sharp focus. We exhaustively reviewed the published literature for data on communal egg-laying in reptiles and amphibians. Our analysis demonstrates that the behavior is much more common than previously recognized (occurring in 481 spp.), especially among lizards (N = 255 spp.), where the behavior has evolved multiple times. Our conceptual review strongly suggests that different forces may be driving the evolution and maintenance of communal egg-laying in different taxa. Using a game theory approach, we demonstrate how a stable equilibrium may occur between solitary and communal layers, thus allowing both strategies to co-exist in some populations, and we discuss factors that may influence these proportions. We conclude by outlining future research directions for determining the proximate and ultimate causes of communal egg-laying.
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ISSN:0033-5770
1539-7718
DOI:10.1086/605078