Dinosaur parental incubation behavior and clutch size

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com


A new paper:


Geoffrey F. Birchard, Marcello Ruta, and D. Charles Deeming (2013)
Evolution of parental incubation behaviour in dinosaurs cannot be
inferred from clutch mass in birds.
Biology Letters 9(4): 20130036;
doi:10.1098/rsbl.2013.0036
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/9/4/20130036.abstract

A recent study proposed that incubation behaviour (i.e. type of
parental care) in theropod dinosaurs can be inferred from an
allometric analysis of clutch volume in extant birds. However, the
study in question failed to account for factors known to affect egg
and clutch size in living bird species. A new scaling analysis of
avian clutch mass demonstrates that type of parental care cannot be
distinguished by conventional allometry because of the confounding
effects of phylogeny and hatchling maturity. Precociality of young but
not paternal care in the theropod ancestors of birds is consistent
with the available data.