Nest-dwelling ectoparasites are a major source of stress for growing nestling birds, as they
can negatively impact on growth and physiology, with consequences on pre-fledging …

In most taxa with altricial young, offspring solicit food from their parents using a combination
of visual and acoustic stimuli, but exactly what these young are communicating, and how …

Parents allocate resources to offspring to increase their survival and to maximize their own
fitness, while this investment implies costs to their condition and future reproduction. Parents …

Developmental stress can alter resource allocation in early life, and in altricial birds with
rapid developmental trajectories and high resource demands, nestlings may adjust early …

Traits used by dependent young to obtain parental care are often interpreted in the context
of offspring–parent communication, with offspring traits offering parents some information …

Nestlings normally exhibit a mix of traits that attract parental care, such as postural and vocal
begging and carotenoid‐based mouth colouration. These signals are hypothesised to be …

Parasites have profound and widespread implications for the ecology and evolution of hosts,
and human activity has increased the frequency of interactions between hosts and parasites …

Similar to other signals, coloration of traits expressed by nestlings while they are begging for
food are assumed to reflect their phenotypic conditions, and, therefore, they should be …

In sexually reproducing species, fitness maximization requires obtaining a mate whose
optimal reproductive strategy may not be compatible with one's own optimum. Thus, the …

Critical social interactions between animals such as courtship and competition over
resources are mediated by communication signals, which have evolved via natural or sexual …