Question

You discover a new species on mars. The egg providing members of this species are very brightly colored and the sperm provider is very dull. Which one do you think provides more parental care to the offspring? Why?

Answer 1

The answer to this question can be given from various perspectives. Few of the possible ones are:

1. The egg providing members being brightly colored may be easily picked up by the predators, leaving them susceptible to death more often as compared to their sperm counterparts who are dull. In such a scenario, males will prove to be effective in providing better parental care owing to their high chance of survival.

2. Conventionally speaking, eggs are known to provide better nutrition and protection to the offsprings than the male counterparts. Females are known to have more parental investment than males.

Either of the two could be assumed and justified. Taking into consideration ,three major drivers that have been proposed to explain parental sex roles: (i) differential gametic investment by males and females (ii) different intensity of sexual selection acting on males and females, and (iii) biased social environment that facilitates the more common sex to provide more care.