DOI: 10.5061/dryad.wh70rxwx2
title: Parental care type for extant bird species

description: This database presents parental care type for 5438 bird species (~ 50% of
 extant diversity). The data comes from a previously published study
 (Cockburn 2006) complemented with more recent published information to
 classify 351 species initially categorized as unknown in Cockburn (2006).
 Species were classified as presenting biparental care, female or male only
 care, cooperative care, or no care. The database includes the species
 name, the family and order to which it belongs, the parental care type,
 the source from which the parental care type was obtained, whether the
 species is placed on the Jetz et al. (2012) phylogeny based on molecular
 sequence information or not. The datased was used to analyze the most
 likely ancestral state for parental care type in extant bird species, as
 well as to describe the most likely transition rates among trait
 states. 
description: We used Cockburn’s (2006) review on parental care types across
 bird species as our primary data source, combined with search of more
 recent published information for species with missing data. Cockburn
 (2006) classified species into different parental care categories based
 primarily on information gathered in reviews and taxon-level monographs,
 as well as detailed literature searches, the classification is focused on
 care of eggs and nestlings. Cockburn’s review lacked parental care
 information for many species, which was inferred based on phylogenetic
 information i.e., the parental care type of a species’ nearest relative.
 Although related species tend to have similar parental care types,
 inferring care type may introduce biases in estimates of parental care
 because it assumes that the tendency for parental care type to be
 conserved applies consistently across all birds (Cockburn, 2006). To
 minimize biases, we did not include species for which parental care type
 was inferred from phylogenetic information. We cross-referenced species
 with unknown parental care types in Cockburn’s (2006) review with the
 Birds of the World Alive (BOW Alive) (Billerman et al. 2020) to check if
 more recent information on their parental care was available. BOW Alive
 provides comprehensive and updated information on the behavior and life
 histories of virtually all extant species of birds, enabling us to
 increase the number of species included in our analyses, as well as to
 update Cockburn’s original classification. Our
 classification follows Cockburn (2006), who identifies six types of
 post-oviposition care based on number and sex of caregivers: geothermal
 heat (avoiding care via the use of geothermal heat to incubate eggs),
 brood parasite (avoiding care via brood parasitism), male-only care (care
 provided exclusively by the father), female-only care (care provided
 exclusively by the mother), biparental care (care provided by both
 parents), and cooperative care (care provided by more than two
 individuals). Because species using geothermal heat and those classified
 as brood parasites were very rare, to ensure an accurate estimation of
 transition rates, we did not attempt to estimate transition rates to and
 from these categories, rather we merged them into the “no parental care”
 category. Some species exhibit non-conventional parental care types, such
 as suspected or occasional cooperative breeders, as well as species that
 form family groups without cooperative breeding. However, information for
 these species is often limited, making it challenging to determine care
 types without detailed population studies or phenotypic differences
 between caregivers (Cockburn 2006). Although Cockburn’s classification
 follows a rigorous and conservative criterion for non-conventional
 species, we consulted BOW Alive to gather additional breeding information
 that could aid in their classification. Overall, the breeding information
 from BOW Alive was congruent with Cockburn’s (2006) classification and
 thus we followed it. The aforementioned verification for 327 species also
 gave us confidence regarding Cockburn’s (2006) classification as in all
 cases it was congruent with information from BOW Alive.
 To classify species with unknown parental care types in Cockburn
 (2006), we used BOW Alive and performed the following steps: 1) extracted
 all species with unknown parental care and compared their scientific names
 in Cockburn’s database with those in Jetz et al.’s (2012) phylogeny,
 removing species that did not match; 2) using the R package
 <em>rvest</em>(Wickham 2022;
 https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=rvest) we performed an automated search
 of the following keywords on each species’ breeding section from BOW
 Alive<em>: (fe)male, sexes, adult, parents, pair, cooperative,
 helper, communal, family group, relatives, geothermal,
 parasite</em>. The list of keywords used for the automated search
 was based on a revision of parental care information for species for which
 information was available to identify the words that appeared in those
 descriptions;  3) we discarded species that did not mention any of the
 keywords in their breeding information, as these keywords are crucial to
 determine the number and sex of caregivers, which is essential for
 assigning a care type; 4) for species for which the breeding information
 mentioned at least one of the keywords, one of us (PLP) consulted the
 information to assign a parental care type, focusing on the contribution
 of each parent in incubation, brooding and/or food provisioning (either
 mate feeding while incubating and brooding or the direct feeding of
 young). We did not consider nest construction as parental care since it
 can serve as a mate attraction behavior. We also disregarded information
 from captivity or single observations as insufficient evidence for robust
 classification. Doubtful information (i.e., containing phrases like
 “suspected” or “not well documented”) was considered invalid unless
 additional information supported it. Species that breed in colonies, but
 for which the presence of helpers that contribute to care is unknown, were
 conservatively classified as biparental when information supported this
 classification, otherwise, they were discarded. Species exhibiting
 occasional cooperative breeding, that is species for which observations of
 cooperative breeding were sporadic or those for which cooperative breeding
 is described as being uncommon, were also classified as biparental.
 Examples of the aforementioned cases can be found in some tanagers of the
 genus <em>Ramphocelus</em> (e.g., <em>Ramphocelus
 carbo</em> and <em>Ramphocelus dimidiatus</em>), for
 which there are records of helpers at the nest, but it is an unusual
 behavior. In total, we assigned a parental care type to 351 species
 initially categorized as unknown in Cockburn (2006) (see Supplementary
 Table 14). While this number may appear small, it reflects the limited
 available information and our cautious approach aimed at minimizing
 errors.
description: # Parental care type for extant bird species
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wh70rxwx2](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wh70rxwx2) ## Description of the data and file structure The database includes the species' name, based on the taxonomy used by Jetz et al. (2012) for their phylogeny, as well as the family and order to which the species belongs. The "source" column defines whether the parental care type is from the work of Cockburn (2006) or from descriptions of parental care in the Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (Billerman et al. 2020). The data frame also includes information for each species regarding whether it was placed in the phylogeny of Jetz et al (2012) based on molecular sequences or not. This was used in the accompanying article to repeat analyses using only species for which phylogenetic information is based on sequence data to avoid any biases. Finally the dataset contains the information on the parental care type: P: pair (i.e. biparental care), M: male only care, F: female only care, C: cooperative care, and N: none (i.e. no parental care provided).  ## Sharing/Access information Data was derived from the following sources: Billerman, S. M., Keeney, B. K., Rodewald, P. G., & Schulenberg, T. S. (Editors) (2022). Birds of the World. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. Cockburn, A. (2006). Prevalence of different modes of parental care in birds. *Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences*, 273(1592), 1375-1383. ## Code/Software There is no code included in the submission.