Early life asymmetries and the allocation of cooperative care in banded mongooses in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda 2013-2016

During manipulated breeding attempts, the pre-natal condition of females was experimentally increased by provisioning half of pregnant females in each social group with 50 g of egg per day for the second half of pregnancy; the other half of pregnant females were not provisioned and acted as matched controls. Across all groups, each manipulated breeding attempt was followed by an non-manipulated breeding attempt in which no females were provisioned. In total we manipulated 34 breeding attempts in 7 social groups, and collected data on 101 provisioned female pregnancies, and 97 non-provisioned female pregnancies. Manipulated breeding attempts produced 50 pups from provisioned females and 50 pups from non-provisioned females. We visited social groups every 1-3 days during pregnancy and after birth to record data on female weight and offspring weight. We performed focals of pups once they had emerged from the den to collect data on escorting (a form of cooperative pup care). During focals we recorded which pups were being escorted, and by which females, to calculate on the amount of escorting that females performed during the escorting period. We recorded similar data on male escorting to compare male and female behaviour. We also collected data on pup survival for the following year after birth.

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