An offspring signal of quality affects the timing of future parental reproduction

Mas, Flore

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.1094

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(35 reference statements)

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“…2011), including the European earwig (Mas et al. 2009; Mas & Kölliker 2011). Although female condition is known to influence the period of maternal care (Laurien‐Kehnen & Trillmich 2004), current theoretical models do not incorporate female condition although female condition might be an important factor in shaping active choices by both sides (Bateson 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Female Condition on Maternal Care in the European Earwig

Wong

2012

Ethology

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Parental care typically enhances offspring fitness at costs for tending parents. Asymmetries in genetic relatedness entail potential conflicts between parents and offspring over the duration and the amount of care. To understand how these conflicts are resolved evolutionarily, it is important to understand how individual condition affects offspring and parental behaviour and whether parents or offspring make active choices in their interactions. Condition effects on offspring have been broadly studied, but the effect of parental condition on parent–offspring interactions is less well understood, in particular in species where care is facultative and offspring have the option to beg for food from the parents or to self‐forage. In this study, we carried out two experiments in the European earwig Forficula auricularia, a system where females provide facultative care, in which we manipulated female condition (through a high‐food and low‐food treatment) and the degree by which mothers and offspring could make active choices. In a first experiment, where female mobility was limited, female condition had no significant effect on the rate of offspring self‐foraging, which increased with nymph age. In a second experiment, nymph access to food was limited and females in poor nutritional condition provided food to significantly fewer nymphs than high condition females. In both experiments, offspring attendance remained at a constantly high level and was independent of female condition even after experimental separation of females and offspring. Our results show that earwig nymphs do not use cues of female condition to adjust rates of self‐foraging, that females control food provisioning depending on their own condition, and that females and nymphs share control over offspring attendance, a form of care not influenced by female condition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Female Condition on Maternal Care in the European Earwig

Wong

2012

Ethology

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“…Upon the emergence of F1 adults, brothers and sisters from each first clutch were separated to prevent sibmating. After the 492 F0 mothers produced a second clutch or were characterized as single-clutch females (females are unlikely to produce additional clutches 60 days after the hatching of their first clutch [26]), F1 adults of the first-clutch families were assigned to two experimental groups, depending on their mother's relative investment in second clutches, as being in the bottom third (S-groups, including both singleand double-clutch producers) or in the top third (L-groups, including only double-clutch producers) of the distribution (each group includes 164 families, figure 1a). This relative investment, which is the number of eggs produced in second clutch divided by the total number of eggs produced, measures how mothers invested in second relative to first reproduction, while controlling for their overall capacity of egg production.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental antagonism and parent–offspring co-adaptation interact to shape family life

Meunier

Kölliker

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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The family is an arena for conflicts between offspring, mothers and fathers that need resolving to promote the evolution of parental care and the maintenance of family life. Co-adaptation is known to contribute to the resolution of parent–offspring conflict over parental care by selecting for combinations of offspring demand and parental supply that match to maximize the fitness of family members. However, multiple paternity and differences in the level of care provided by mothers and fathers can generate antagonistic selection on offspring demand (mediated, for example, by genomic imprinting) and possibly hamper co-adaptation. While parent–offspring co-adaptation and parental antagonism are commonly considered two major processes in the evolution of family life, their co-occurrence and the evolutionary consequences of their joint action are poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate the simultaneous and entangled effects of these two processes on outcomes of family interactions, using a series of breeding experiments in the European earwig, Forficula auricularia , an insect species with uniparental female care. As predicted from parental antagonism, we show that paternally inherited effects expressed in offspring influence both maternal care and maternal investment in future reproduction. However, and as expected from the entangled effects of parental antagonism and co-adaptation, these effects critically depended on postnatal interactions with caring females and maternally inherited effects expressed in offspring. Our results demonstrate that parent–offspring co-adaptation and parental antagonism are entangled key drivers in the evolution of family life that cannot be fully understood in isolation.

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“…We selected 60 days as temporal delimiter for egg laying because previous work indicated that females were very unlikely to produce a second clutch more than 60 days after egg hatching (Mas and Kölliker 2011). Females laying a second clutch that did not hatch (N = 32) were discarded from the analyses as they could not be assigned unambiguously to the 1C or 2C tactic.…”

Section: Measures Of Maternal Carementioning

confidence: 99%

One clutch or two clutches? Fitness correlates of coexisting alternative female life-histories in the European earwig

et al. 2011

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Whether to reproduce once or multiple times (semelparity vs. iteroparity) is a major life-history decision that organisms have to take. Mode of parity is usually considered a species characteristic. However, recent models suggested that population properties or condition-dependent fitness payoffs could help to maintain both life-history tactics within populations. In arthropods, semelparity was also hypothesised to be a critical preadaptation for the evolution of maternal care, semelparous females being predicted to provide more care due to the absence of costs on future reproduction. The aim of this study was to characterize potential fitness payoffs and levels of maternal care in semel-and iteroparous females of the European earwig Forficula auricularia. Based on 15 traits measured in 494 females and their nymphs, our results revealed that iteroparous females laid their first clutch earlier, had more eggs in their first clutch, gained more weight during the 2 weeks following hatching of the first clutch, but produced eggs that developed more slowly than semelparous females. Among iteroparous females, the sizes of first and second clutches were significantly and positively correlated, indicating no investment trade-off between reproductive events. Iteroparous females also provided more food than semelparous ones, a result contrasting with predictions that iteroparity is incompatible with the evolution of maternal care. Finally, a controlled breeding experiment reported full mating compatibility among offspring from females of the two modes of parity, confirming that both types of females belong to one single species. Overall, these results indicate that alternative modes of parity represent coexisting life-history tactics that are likely to be condition-dependent and associated with offspring development and specific levels of maternal care in earwigs.

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An offspring signal of quality affects the timing of future parental reproduction

Cited by 16 publications

References 20 publications

The Effect of Female Condition on Maternal Care in the European Earwig

The Effect of Female Condition on Maternal Care in the European Earwig

Parental antagonism and parent–offspring co-adaptation interact to shape family life

One clutch or two clutches? Fitness correlates of coexisting alternative female life-histories in the European earwig

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