Dependent young are often easy targets for predators, so for many parent vertebrates, responding to offspring-directed threats is a fundamental part of reproduction. We tested the parental adrenocortical response of the endangered black-capped vireo (Vireo atricapilla) and the common white-eyed vireo (V. griseus) to acute and chronic threats to their offspring. Like many open-nesting birds, our...

Leptin is involved in regulating food intake, energy balance and bone formation. Increasing evidence suggests that leptin is also involved in fetal growth and development. The aim of this study was to determine if increased maternal leptin is followed by changes in body composition, skeletal growth or hormonal regulation in the adult rat offspring. Pregnant rats were given injections of either ...

It is known that the early environment affects the mental development of rodent and human offspring. However, it is not known specifically whether a postpartum depressive state influences the depressive state in offspring. Using learned helplessness (LH) in rats as an animal model of depression, we examined the influence of maternal postpartum LH on responses to the LH test of offspring. Dam ra...

CONTEXT Alloparental care and feeding of young is often called "cooperative breeding" and humans are increasingly described as being a cooperative breeding species. OBJECTIVE To critically evaluate whether the human offspring care system is best grouped with that of other cooperative breeders. METHODS (1) Review of the human system of offspring care in the light of definitions of cooperativ...

Introduction: There are several evidences that show various environmental stresses during pregnancy, affect physiological behavior of the offspring. In this study the effects of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep deprivation of pregnant rats on spatial learning of adult male offspring by Morris water maze were investigated. Methods: Water tank technique was used for inducing REM sleep deprivatio...

Introduction The estimation of genetic risks to the offspring of consanguineous marriages, especially those of first cousins, has been exhaustively studied in the literature. Even so the subject still remains controversial, as shown by the results of a recent inquiry performed among medical geneticists and genetic counsellors in the United States by Bennett et al. (1999). In fact, analysing the...

For 0 < α ≤ 2 and 0 < β ≤ 1 the (d,α,β)-superprocess is the superprocess with symmetric α-stable spatial movement in Rd and spectrally positive (1+β)-stable branching. It is a measurevalued process arising as the high density limit of empirical measure for the following critical branching symmetric α-stable particle system. Independent of the others, each particle is assigned a mass n−1 and it ...

This study also rejects arguments made by J&P that immigrants are needed to meet labour shortages, that they bring productivity-increasing economies of scale, and that their children will repay the fiscal burden. New evidence does not provide any grounds for optimism that the offspring of recent immigrants are going to be able to earn enough to compensate current and future generations of Canad...