Parent-Offspring Signaling

Parents and offspring use a wide range of signals to communicate, most of which perform a few main functions, from regulating prenatal care to assembly, warning, and provisioning. Signaling behavior often changes dramatically as offspring mature and learn to signal more effectively. Parent-offspring signaling provides a model system for testing ideas about parent-offspring conflict and the evolution of reliable signaling. The dynamics of signaling within the family and the maternal effects on offspring behavior are two particularly promising areas for studies of parent-offspring signaling. These two areas are now being explored in a wider range of taxa.