Cooperative breeding is comparatively rare among birds in the mainly temperate and boreal Northern Hemisphere. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Cooperative Breeding in Birds: Long Term Studies of Ecology and Behaviour: Amazon.it: Peter B. Stacey, Walter D. Koenig: Libri in altre lingue Stacey & Koenig 1990). In particular, understanding of the factors that promote the expression of helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding species remains weak, presumably because of the diverse nature of ecological and demographic drivers that promote sociality. Start studying Behavioural Ecology - Cooperative breeding. Ecology is a fundamental driving force for the evolutionary transition from solitary living to breeding cooperatively in groups. The evolution of cooperation is a persistent problem for evolutionary biologists. Although the evolution of cooperative breeding has often been Stacey PB, Koenig W (1990) Cooperative breeding in birds: long-term studies of ecology and behaviour. Kin selection theory provides one important explanation for seemingly altruistic helping behaviour by non-breeding subordinates in cooperative breeding animals. Cooperative breeding, in which more than a pair of conspecifics cooperate to raise young at a single nest or brood, is widespread among vertebrates but highly variable in its geographic distribution. In evolution, co-operation is the process where groups of organisms work or act together for common or mutual benefits. Cooperative behaviour has been shown to provide individuals with either direct fitness benefits (e.g. Contributions to cooperative rearing in meerkats. REVIEW: BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY Breeding Together: Kin Selection and Mutualism in Cooperative Vertebrates Tim Clutton-Brock In cooperatively breeding vertebrates, nonbreeding helpers raise young produced by dominant breeders. The cooperative breeding systems of birds have been a fertile testing ground for ideas on the evolution of societies, resulting in some of the most intensive studies of natural populations in ecology (e.g. Stacey PB, Koenig W (1990) Cooperative breeding in birds: long-term studies of ecology and behaviour. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Google Scholar Stiver KA, Dierkes P, Taborsky M, Balshine S (2004) Dispersal patterns and status change in a co-operatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher: evidence from microsatellite analy-ses and behavioural observations. It provides an excellent review of many of the primary cooperative breeding studies of the last two decades, points the way to future research, and touches on some of the more general problems in behavioral ecology. Cooperative behaviour is widespread in nature, and seen in many different organisms, from bacterial cells to primates.