The Black-legged Kittiwake gull (Rissa tridactyla) is noted for its suite of evolutionary adaptations to its extreme cliff-nesting habitat (Cullen, 1957) which distinguish it behaviourally in a number of ways from other gulls (Laridae). One such behaviour we observed was siblicide, the death of one chick from falling out of the nest as a consequence of agonistic harassment by the other (Dickins et al., 1985). This harassment involved what we termed “siblicidal pecks” inflicted by the dominant chick on its younger sib, not in the context of feeding. These we distinguished observationally from “punishing pecks”, also made by the dominant chick on its brood mate, specifically when the latter was begging for food from a parent, causing it to stop this behaviour in the short term.

Though the evolution of siblicide initially seemed to present a paradox for Inclusive fitness theory it was soon seen to be a logical corollary thereof (O’Connor, 1978) (D. Mock & Parker, 1998), and dependent upon key ecological variables. A number of subsequent studies of these factors in the kittiwake, largely from the ecological and ornithological literature, are here collated, and it is considered how these might be integrated with the application of concepts from operant psychology to chick and parent behaviours (Reed, 2015), to give a full account.

黑脚Kittiwake海鸥（Rissa tridactyla）因其对极端悬崖栖息地的进化适应而著称（Cullen，1957），从而在许多方面与其他海鸥（Laridae）区别开来。我们观察到的一种这样的行为是杀硅剂，一只小鸡由于另一只小鸡的激动性骚扰而掉出巢而死亡（Dickins等，1985）。这种骚扰涉及到显性小鸡同胞上的显性小鸡造成的“同伴啄”，而不是在喂养的情况下。这些在观察上与“惩罚性啄木鸟”区别开来，“惩罚性啄木鸟”也由占主导地位的雏鸟在其配偶身上做出，特别是当后者从父母那里乞讨食物时，导致其在短期内停止了这种行为。

尽管硅化物的发展最初似乎是包容性适应理论的一个悖论，但很快就被认为是其逻辑必然结果（O'Connor，1978）（D。Mock＆Parker，1998），并且取决于关键的生态变量。本文整理了许多关于Kittiwake中这些因素的后续研究，这些研究主要来自生态学和鸟类学文献，并考虑了这些因素如何与从操作心理学到雏鸡和父母行为的概念的应用相结合（Reed，2015年）。 ），以提供完整的帐户。