... Conversely, when the dominants compensate for the care provided by helpers by reducing their amount of care, the total amount of care received by the offspring may remain similar. Such "load lightening" by helpers can reduce the costs of reproduction for the dominants (Bruintjes, Heg-Bachar, & Heg, 2013;Dixit, English, & Lukas, 2017;Heinsohn, 2004;Koenig & Walters, 2011;Meade, Nam, Beckerman, & Hatchwell, 2010;Scantlebury, Russell, McIlrath, Speakman, & Clutton-Brock, 2002;Sharp, English, & Clutton-Brock, 2013), which can lead to increased dominant survival (Cockburn et al., 2008;Hatchwell & Russell, 1996b;Heinsohn, 1992;Khan & Walters, 2002;Kingma et al., 2010) and increased future reproductive success (Brown & Brown, 1981;Russell, Brotherton, McIlrath, Sharpe, & Clutton-Brock, 2003;Woxvold & Magrath, 2005;Blackmore & Heinsohn, 2007; but see Meade et al., 2010). ...