Alloparenting

Alloparenting (also referred to as alloparental care) is a term used to classify any form of parental care provided by an individual towards a non-descendent young. Non-descendent meaning any young who is not the direct genetic offspring of the individual, but does not exclude related young such as siblings or grandchildren. Individuals providing this care are referred to using the neutral term of alloparent (or ‘helper’).

Alloparental care encapsulates a diverse range of parenting systems across a range of animal groups and social structures. The alloparent-young relationship can be mutualistic or parasitic, and between or within species. Cooperative breeding, joint brood care, reciprocal allonursing, brood parasitism and cuckoldry represent situations in which alloparenting plays a role.

In biology, ethology and sociology, alloparental care is defined as any form of parental care, which is directed towards non-descendent young. It was first used by Edward O. Wilson in 1975, in his book ‘Sociobiology’ in an attempt to define a neutral term which could encapsulate the gender and relation specific terms of ‘aunite’ and ‘auncle’ which had previously been coined in the literature to describe this sort of behaviour. In addition, Wilson used the term alloparent (or 'helper') to refer to the individuals providing the care, and proposed allomaternal and allopaternal as phrases that could be used to distinguish the sex of the helper. The word alloparent roughly translates to "other-parent" based on the Greek root "allo", meaning other, and the Latin root "parens", meaning parent.

Alloparenting encapsulates a diverse range of parenting systems and behaviours. Simply, it can be understood as a system of parenting in which individuals other than the direct genetic parents act in a parental role, either for a short, or extended period of time. This definition does not exclude alloparents who are genetically ‘related’ to the offspring, such as siblings and aunts, who are often observed as ‘helpers at the nest’. In instances where this is the case, the alloparent and the offspring share a degree of relatedness (r [the coefficient of relatedness] > 0), and therefore kin selection is often involved in the evolution of the behaviour. Use of the term non-descendent young, as opposed to non-related young is therefore an important distinction in the definition of alloparenting. The non-descendent young in whom the alloparent invests can be conspecific (of the same species) or heterospecific (of a different species), a phenomenon often observed in fish and a select number of bird species.

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