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> Yes, there are parental investments in which the female makes the
> larger contribution other than anisogamy, and yes, these all increase the
> sense in which the female is a resource to competed over, but the
> reason that it is the female which makes these additional investments
> stems from the intial asymmetry of anisogamy.
>
Though in fish it is not unknown for the male to offer most parental care,
whilst in many birds, and also of course in humans, the father shares
parental duties more or less equally with the mother.

In the case of fish, it seems that the abandonment theory might work. If one
partner abandons the offspring, the other has to choose between offering all
the care, or leaving them to certain death. Since with fish the mother
expels unfertilised eggs, which the father then fertilises, she has most
opportunity to abandon and leave the male with all the hard work.

With birds, the chick demands an awful lot of parental care, and two-parent
families have a definite advantage over single mothers. The male is therfore
compelled to offer parental care is he is to have any hope of seeing his
chicks survive.
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