Does it Pay to Care?: Exploring the Costs and Benefits of Parental Care in the Hibiscus Harlequin BugTectocoris diophthalmus(Heteroptera: Scutelleridae)

Abstract

Knowledge of the selective pressures favouring parental care can inform our understanding of the evolutionary origins and transitions of sociality in insects. Here, we report upon investigations designed to estimate the costs and benefits of parental care in the egg-guarding hibiscus harlequin bug Tectocoris diophthalmus (Heteroptera: Scutelleridae). We found that the presence of a guarding female had no effect on hatching success under benign laboratory conditions. In the wild, however, guarding decreased the likelihood of total clutch failure, and produced a fourfold greater egghatching rate relative to unguarded clutches. Females guarded against generalist invertebrate egg predators, including conspecific nymphs, but were ineffective against hymenopteran egg parasitoids. Females continued to feed during the guarding period and exhibited no signs of weight loss or increased mortality due to this behaviour. We did not observe the production of subsequent clutches in any experimental females; therefore, the lifetime fecundity costs of providing parental care in T. diophthalmus remain indeterminate. Overall, maternal egg guarding appears to function as a relatively low cost-low benefit strategy that increases hatching success by protecting against predationbut not parasitism.Ethology 120 (2014) 607-615

Maternal care in Acanthosomatinae (Insecta: Heteroptera: Acanthosomatidae)—correlated evolution with morphological change

“…The evolution of paternal care in hemipteran lineages has been driven by a complex of factors. It probably originated as a response to pressure from predators and parasitoids [ 43 , 71 – 76 ], to prevent eggs from desiccation [ 77 , 78 ], to develop a more elaborate manipulation of tradeoffs between air exchange and desiccation in water bugs [ 79 – 82 ], or to represent an adaptation to unstable or ephemeral food resources in cydnid families [ 25 , 27 , 32 , 83 , 84 ]. In treehoppers, maternal care is associated with changes from a solitary to gregarious life history in connection with the acquisition of ant mutualism [ 2 , 74 ].…”

No link between nymph and adult coloration in shield bugs: weak selection by predators

“…Adult and nymph shield bugs generally share similar morphology, diet, microhabitat and thus likely share similar predation pressures. In fact, many species from the family Scutelleridae ( jewel bugs) are known to exhibit maternal care, and so adults and nymphs are found in close proximity [29,30]. A distinctive trait of shield bugs is the presence of defensive secretions in both adults and nymphs to deter predators [16,27,28,31].…”

Paternal care behaviour of the giant water bug Kirkaldyia deyrolli (Heteroptera: Belostomatidae) against ants

“…The offspring of subsocial invertebrates are potentially vulnerable to predators and/or parasitoids, but they are effectively protected against these enemies by their male and/or female parents (Tallamy & Wood, 1986;Costa, 2006;Trumbo, 2012). For example, among various terrestrial insects, orphaned eggs and young nymphs consistently undergo severe predation pressure, and attendance by parent females greatly enhances their survival (Tallamy & Denno, 1981;Gilbert et al, 2010;Giffney & Kemp, 2014). Female removal experiments have shown that parental defence is highly effective under field conditions, with survival Correspondence: Shin-ya Ohba, Biological Laboratory, Faculty of Education, Nagasaki University, 1-14 Bunkyo-machi, Nagasaki 852-8521, Japan.…”