Contest behavior and other reproductive efforts in aging breeders: a test of residual reproductive value and state-dependent models

Trumbo, Stephen T.

doi:10.1007/s00265-012-1406-4

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 70 publications

(85 reference statements)

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“…Female burying beetles also show terminal investment in postnatal care [28,54,55]. In female burying beetles, prenatal investment in offspring declines with age at first reproduction [28,56].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male age mediates reproductive investment and response to paternity assurance

et al. 2013

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Theory predicts that male response to reduced paternity will depend on male state and interactions between the sexes. If there is little chance of reproducing again, then males should invest heavily in current offspring, regardless of their share in paternity. We tested this by manipulating male age and paternity assurance in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. We found older males invested more in both mating effort and parental effort than younger males. Furthermore, male age, a component of male state, mediated male response to perceived paternity. Older males provided more prenatal care, whereas younger males provided less prenatal care, when perceived paternity was low. Adjustments in male care, however, did not influence selection acting indirectly on parents, through offspring performance. This is because females adjusted their care in response to the age of their partner, providing less care when paired with older males than younger males. As a result offspring, performance did not differ between treatments. Our study shows, for the first time, that a male state variable is an important modifier of paternity–parental care trade-offs and highlights the importance of social interactions between males and females during care in determining male response to perceived paternity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male age mediates reproductive investment and response to paternity assurance

et al. 2013

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“…For example, if the absence of conspecific competitors indicates a low population density, control females may have invested less in their current brood to take advantage of additional breeding opportunities in the future (McNamara et al 2009). An alternative explanation is that involvement in a contest might have resulted in injuries given the fierce competition over carcasses in Nicrophorus (Trumbo 1991;Cotter et al 2011), and injured females might have increased their investment in the current brood due to a higher risk of infection. A previous study on Nicrophorus vespilloides found that immunologically challenged females produced heavier broods than control females (Cotter et al 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We expected the mediumsized female to win the contest if she was paired with a small female, whereas we expected her to lose the contest if she was paired with a large female. We only used females that had been sexually mature for up to 2 weeks (i.e., 10-24 days after eclosion), because female age has been shown to influence contest outcome in the closely related Nicrophorus orbicollis (Trumbo 2012). At the start of the experiment, we transferred pairs of females to transparent plastic containers (17 cm # 12 cm # 6 cm) with 1 cm of moist soil and a freshly thawed mouse carcass of a standardized size (20-22 g).…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the start of the experiment, we transferred pairs of females to transparent plastic containers (17 cm # 12 cm # 6 cm) with 1 cm of moist soil and a freshly thawed mouse carcass of a standardized size (20-22 g). We left the pairs undisturbed for 3 days, at which point we determined the winner by checking which beetle was present on the carcass (Safryn and Scott 2000;Trumbo 2012). In the vast majority of cases, the outcome of these contests was consistent with what we expected.…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Prior Contest Experience and Contest Outcome on Female Reproductive Decisions and Offspring Fitness

Pilakouta

Halford

Rácz

et al. 2016

The American Naturalist

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Dryad data: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fq22f.abstract: Winning or losing a prior contest can influence the outcome of future contests, but it might also alter subsequent reproductive decisions. For example, losers may increase their investment in the current breeding attempt if losing a contest indicates limited prospects for future breeding. Using the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, we tested whether females adjust their prehatching and posthatching reproductive effort after winning or losing a contest with a same-sex conspecific. Burying beetles breed on carcasses of small vertebrates for which there is fierce intrasexual competition. We found no evidence that winning or losing a contest influenced reproductive investment decisions in this species. Instead, we show that a female's prior contest experience (regardless of its outcome) influenced the amount of posthatching care provided, with downstream consequences for the female's reproductive output; both winners and losers spent more time provisioning food to their offspring and produced larger broods than females with no contest experience. We discuss the wider implications of our findings and present a conceptual model linking contestmediated adjustments in parental investment to population-level processes. We propose that the frequency of intraspecific contests could both influence and be influenced by population dynamics in species where contest experience influences the size and/or number of offspring produced.

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“…This result suggests a specific deficit in muscle strength because other measures of health (ability to parent, lifetime reproductive success and longevity) are not affected. By contrast, Trumbo () found no effect of a 7‐day starvation period on contest ability when starvation begins on day 25, well after sclerotization and reproductive maturation are complete ( N. orbicollis ). At this stage of adult life, as in the present study, changes in body mass during starvation are likely to affect lipid reserves.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mass–size relationships, starvation and recovery in an engorging feeder

Trumbo

Xhihani

2015

Physiol. Entomol.

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The relationships of larval nutritional resources with adult body size, starvation resistance and reproductive decisions are not always clear. Burying beetle larvae with inadequate nutrition are hypothesized to develop into relatively large adults that are able to contest for breeding resources. The trade-off is that the emerging adult has minimal energy reserves and is more susceptible to starvation, and must gain proportionately more weight after emerging. These hypotheses are investigated in Nicrophorus orbicollis Say. In addition, sex differences in size-mass ratios as well as starvation and recovery in reproductively mature females are examined. The larval mass to adult size ratio is similar in male and female N. Orbicollis and, contrary to prediction, small larvae do not result in adults that are relatively large in size for their mass. Emerging adults of lesser mass resist starvation less well, as expected. Emerging adults of smaller pronotal size gain more relative mass but less absolute mass than larger adults. In reproductively mature adult females, recovery from food deprivation is rapid, with most if not all the weight that is lost during a 9-10-day starvation period being re-gained within 1 day of engorging. The ability to gain weight rapidly and regulate body mass provides a nutritional framework for understanding the larva to adult transition and the reproductive and parenting decisions of burying beetles that otherwise would appear to be of too high risk.

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Contest behavior and other reproductive efforts in aging breeders: a test of residual reproductive value and state-dependent models

Cited by 15 publications

References 70 publications

Male age mediates reproductive investment and response to paternity assurance

Male age mediates reproductive investment and response to paternity assurance

Effects of Prior Contest Experience and Contest Outcome on Female Reproductive Decisions and Offspring Fitness

Mass–size relationships, starvation and recovery in an engorging feeder

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