In cooperative breeding systems, parental care is generally shared between socially dominant individuals and (often related) subordinate helpers. The alloparental care provided by helpers often allows the dominants to reduce their current reproductive investment, which may then reduce the negative impacts of reproductive effort on the condition of dominants (e.g. through reducing oxidative stress) and increase the survival of helped dominants.
In this study, we use 15 years of data on the facultative cooperatively breeding Seychelles warbler Acrocephalus sechellensis to study associations between actuarial senescence and cooperative breeding.