I am interested in how offspring respond to the distribution of helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding species. A central question to the study of cooperative societies is why individuals help to raise young that are not their own. Many studies have now shown that helpers frequently do obtain both direct and indirect benefits through their actions. I am interested in investigating the fine-scale patterns in helping behaviour to investigate how help is distributed amongst group members. This issue is of particular importance in cooperative breeders where the fitness gains of helpers are likely to depend on how much help they provide and who they provide it to.

There are two main questions concerning helping behaviour which my research aims to address. Firstly, how do helpers decide which offspring to help and to what extent, and secondly, how do offspring respond to this?

In my PhD I aim to investigate these questions in the communally breeding banded mongoose (Mungos mungo). Banded mongooses live in large social groups in which all group members help to raise the communal litter of pups. This species has an usual helping system because the majority of pup care is carried out in stable, long-term associations with older group members, known as ‘escorts’. This system produces a fundamental difference in the level of care that pups receive and also in the level of effort that helpers invest. By examining offspring behaviour and helper responses my research aims to identify the behavioural mechanisms that both helpers and pups use to negotiate levels of care.