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The word is most often used for the offspring of mammals, but can be used for any animal that gives birth to multiple young. In comparison, a group of eggs and the offspring that hatch from them are frequently called a clutch, while young birds are often called a brood. Animals from the same litter are referred to as littermates.
A life history strategy is the "age- and stage-specific patterns" [2] and timing of events that make up an organism's life, such as birth, weaning, maturation, death, etc. [3] These events, notably juvenile development, age of sexual maturity, first reproduction, number of offspring and level of parental investment, senescence and death, depend ...
Each of these offspring contains numerous genes which have coding for specific tasks and properties. Males and females both contribute equally to the genotypes of their offspring, in which gametes fuse and form. An important aspect of the formation of the parent offspring is the chromosome, which is a structure of DNA which contains many genes. [1]
Animals with few offspring can devote more resources to the nurturing and protection of each individual offspring, thus reducing the need for many offspring. On the other hand, animals with many offspring may devote fewer resources to each individual offspring; for these types of animals it is common for many offspring to die soon after birth ...
Overlapping generations are found in species that live for many years, and reproduce many times. Many birds, for instance, have new nests every (couple of) year(s). Therefore, the offspring will, after they have matured, also have their own nests of offspring while the parent generation could be breeding again as well.
Examples of precocial birds include the domestic chicken, many species of ducks and geese, waders, rails, and the hoatzin. Precocial birds can provide protein-rich eggs and thus their young hatch in the fledgling stage – able to protect themselves from predators and the females have less post-natal involvement.
Parental care is a behavioural and evolutionary strategy adopted by some animals, involving a parental investment being made to the evolutionary fitness of offspring. Patterns of parental care are widespread and highly diverse across the animal kingdom. [ 1 ]
This encompasses behaviors that aid in the evolutionary success of the offspring and parental investment, which is a measure of expenditure (time, energy, etc.) exerted by the parent in an attempt to provide evolutionary benefits to the offspring. [1] Therefore, it is a measure of the benefits versus costs of engaging in the parental behaviors. [1]