Biparental care and social evolution in burying beetles: lessons from the larder

Eggert, Anne‐Katrin; Müller, Josef K.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511721953.011

Cited by 223 publications

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“…Male burying beetles provide extended paternal care via the preparation of carcasses and the feeding of altricial larvae (Eggert & Mü ller, 1997). Facultative adjustment of paternal care has been demonstrated in Nicrophorus orbicollis (Scott, 1998) but it is not known if males adjust their care in relation to confidence of paternity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confidence of paternity and paternal care: covariation revealed through the experimental manipulation of the mating system in the beetle Onthophagus taurus

Hunt

Simmons

2002

Journal of Evolutionary Biology

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Theoretical models of paternal care predict that facultative reductions in male care may occur under certain conditions. One important parameter that has been shown to influence the outcome of these models is a male's confidence of paternity. In this study, we tested whether the amount of care provided by horned males in the dimorphic beetle, Onthophagus taurus, varied with his confidence of paternity. Male care results in an increased weight of dung provided in the brood masses produced by the pair. Using the sterile male technique we showed that a horned male's paternity declined with the number of sneak males in the population. The relationship was nonlinear, with paternity declining most rapidly between a frequency of one and three sneaks, and stabilizing thereafter at about 50%. A horned male's paternity was directly related to the number of copulations with the female, relative to the number of copulations achieved by sneaks. Horned males were shown to reduce their care in relation to their declining paternity. Video analysis demonstrated that reductions in male care occurred through a combination of male desertion and a trade-off between caring and paternity assurance behaviours. The number of fights with sneak males was negatively related to the amount of care provided by a horned male. These results suggest that by gauging his expected paternity through the number of fights with sneaks, a horned male is able to assess his paternity and reduce his investment accordingly. Our data thus provide strong empirical support for the proposed link between paternity and paternal care. IntroductionAccording to Hamilton's rule (rb ) c > 0), the evolution of parental behaviour should depend exclusively on the costs to the parents (c) and the benefits to the offspring (b), because the relatedness (r) between parent and offspring should be the same for all offspring and for both parents (Hamilton, 1964). However, sperm competition because of multiple mating by females can reduce the average relatedness between males and the young produced by their mates, and is a widespread phenomenon across animal taxa (Smith, 1984;Birkhead & Møller, 1998). Thus, males often face the uncertainty of investing in offspring to which they are not genetically related. Given that males cannot increase their fitness by investing in unrelated offspring, Triver's (1972) proposed that uncertainty of paternity would favour male desertion because failure to assure paternity prior to investment would put a male at a selective disadvantage in competition with more reproductively selfish individuals. Consequently, variation in a male's confidence of paternity has been proposed to explain the observed inter and intrasexual differences in the magnitude of paternal care provided (e.g. Ridley, 1978;Alexander & Borgia, 1979). Theoretical models have sought to establish the influence of confidence of paternity, the average probability that a male is the father of a given set of offspring (Alexander, 1974; also referred to as certainty of paterni...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confidence of paternity and paternal care: covariation revealed through the experimental manipulation of the mating system in the beetle Onthophagus taurus

Hunt

Simmons

2002

Journal of Evolutionary Biology

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“…Feeding pathways have altered gene expression in parenting insects, fish and mammals [8][9][10]. We characterize the expression of a pathway that heavily influences the motivation to eat, neuropeptide F (neuropeptide Y in vertebrates [11]), during parental care in the subsocial burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, an insect with complex parental care [12,13]. Burying beetles require a vertebrate carcass for reproduction, which serves as a food resource for both the parents and the offspring.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of neuropeptide F in a transition to parental care

Cunningham¹,

VanDenHeuvel²,

Khana³

et al. 2016

Biol. Lett.

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The genetics of complex social behaviour can be dissected by examining the genetic influences of component pathways, which can be predicted based on expected evolutionary precursors. Here, we examine how gene expression in a pathway that influences the motivation to eat is altered during parental care that involves direct feeding of larvae. We examine the expression of neuropeptide F, and its receptor, in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, which feeds pre-digested carrion to its begging larvae. We found that the npf receptor was greatly reduced during active care. Our research provides evidence that feeding behaviour was a likely target during the evolution of parental care in N. vespilloides. Moreover, dissecting complex behaviours into ethologically distinct sub-behaviours is a productive way to begin to target the genetic mechanisms involved in the evolution of complex behaviours.

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“…For example, some animals form social groups to access fixed resources. In these cases (e.g., carcass sharing in burying beetles; Eggert and Muller 1997;Robertson et al 1998), per capita productivity will decrease with increasing group size, whereas total group productivity remains constant. In contrast, many social animals form groups because living in a group by itself has some benefit, such as predator avoidance or detection (Alexander 1974).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group Size and Social Conflict in Complex Societies

Shen

Akçay

Rubenstein

2014

The American Naturalist

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Conflicts of interest over resources or reproduction among individuals in a social group have long been considered to result in automatic and universal costs to group living. However, exploring how social conflict varies with group size has produced mixed empirical results. Here we develop a model that generates alternative predictions for how social conflict should vary with group size depending on the type of benefits gained from being in a social group. We show that a positive relationship between social conflict and group size is favored when groups form primarily for the benefits of sociality but not when groups form mainly for accessing group-defended resources. Thus, increased social conflict in animal societies should not be viewed as an automatic cost of larger social groups. Instead, studying the relationship between social conflict and the types of grouping benefits will be crucial for understanding the evolution of complex societies. DisciplinesBehavior and Ethology | Biology | Demography, Population, and Ecology | Population Biology Submitted May 1, 2013; Accepted September 17, 2013; Electronically published December 10, 2013 abstract: Conflicts of interest over resources or reproduction among individuals in a social group have long been considered to result in automatic and universal costs to group living. However, exploring how social conflict varies with group size has produced mixed empirical results. Here we develop a model that generates alternative predictions for how social conflict should vary with group size depending on the type of benefits gained from being in a social group. We show that a positive relationship between social conflict and group size is favored when groups form primarily for the benefits of sociality but not when groups form mainly for accessing groupdefended resources. Thus, increased social conflict in animal societies should not be viewed as an automatic cost of larger social groups. Instead, studying the relationship between social conflict and the types of grouping benefits will be crucial for understanding the evolution of complex societies.

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Biparental care and social evolution in burying beetles: lessons from the larder

Cited by 223 publications

References 0 publications

Confidence of paternity and paternal care: covariation revealed through the experimental manipulation of the mating system in the beetle Onthophagus taurus

Confidence of paternity and paternal care: covariation revealed through the experimental manipulation of the mating system in the beetle Onthophagus taurus

The role of neuropeptide F in a transition to parental care

Group Size and Social Conflict in Complex Societies

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