In Some Colonial, Ground-Nesting Gulls, Young Birds Sometimes Leave Their

In some colonial, ground-nesting gulls, young birds sometimes leave their natal nests if they have been poorly fed. On occasion, these chicks move to the nests of adults that aren't their parents. Researchers found the following:
Gull chicks that abandoned their natal nests weighed much less on average for chicks their age.
If, however, gull chicks were adopted by nonrelatives, they weighed more on average than unadopted gull chicks.
Adopted chicks are more likely to survive than chicks that remained in natal nests that failed to supply enough food.
Parents that adopted nonrelative chicks lost 0.5 chicks of their own on average.
Less than 10 percent of adult gulls take in a nonrelative chick.
These data were collected to test a hypothesis. What is likely to have been that hypothesis? Was it proximate or ultimate?

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The ultimate hypothesis was th...

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