AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Parental care can occur even before hatching in birds, when parents sit on their eggs to incubate them. After hatching, the parents provide food for their offspring, and may continue to brood their young to keep them warm. Both male and female birds provide parental care, depending on the species.

Detailed explanation-2: -Parental care refers to the level of investment provided by the mother and the father to ensure development and survival of their offspring. In most birds, parents invest profoundly in their offspring as a mutual effort, making a majority of them socially monogamous for the duration of the breeding season.

Detailed explanation-3: -In animals that provide parental care, females are generally the ones that primarily bear the costs. They spend time laying eggs, creating egg cases, guarding eggs or larvae, building nests, incubating and brooding young, carrying young (gestation), nursing (lactation), and subsequently feeding and defending offspring.

Detailed explanation-4: -However, some behaviours that occur before or during mating, such as nest building, egg provisioning, provisioning of the female with nuptial gifts or courtship feeding, are often still regarded as parental care as they lead to higher offspring survival.