Mating competition and parentage assessment in Ptomascopus morio (Coleoptera: Silphidae): A case for resource defense polygyny

Suzuki, Seizi; Nagano, Masahiro; Kobayashi, Norio

doi:10.14411/eje.2006.099

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…To detect paternity, all peaks were scored for presence/ absence in each individual by using the GeneScan analysis software in the 40-to 700-bp range. The presence of 2 diagnostic peaks appears to be sufficient for detecting parentage, as reported in previous studies (Questiau et al 1999;García-González et al 2003Simmons et al 2004;Suzuki et al 2006). In the current study, for small fragments, we considered all peaks with a height above 150 fluorescent units.…”

Section: Parentage Analysissupporting

confidence: 74%

Paternity assurance before and after fertilization by male burying beetles (Nicrophorus quadripunctatus)

Takata

Kurachi

Koyama

et al. 2013

J Ethol

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Parental care requires a large investment of time and energy. This can reduce future parental survival and opportunities for mating. Because males are usually more uncertain of their parentage with respect to the caring of offspring than are females, the reduction in reproductive success is thought to be greater in males. Therefore, males are under selection to ensure paternity of the offspring for which they care. Males can increase paternity before and after fertilization. Before fertilization, males can increase paternity by increasing their competitive ability for fertilization. After fertilization, males can increase paternity by cannibalizing unrelated offspring. Here, we investigated the stage at which male burying beetles, Nicrophorus quadripunctatus, increase their paternity by evaluating the number of offspring sired by a nursing male in asynchronously hatched broods in relation to hatching time. We found that nursing males assure a very high level of the paternity of hatching offspring. We also found that the paternity of non-nursing and nursing males remained constant across hatching time within a brood, indicating that it is unlikely that filial cannibalism plays a role in increasing the paternity of offspring. We concluded that ensuring paternity before fertilization is more important in increasing the paternity of offspring.

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Section: Parentage Analysissupporting

confidence: 74%

Paternity assurance before and after fertilization by male burying beetles (Nicrophorus quadripunctatus)

Takata

Kurachi

Koyama

et al. 2013

J Ethol

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“…The Nicrophorinae contains three genera, the sister genera pair of Eonecrophorus and Nicrophorus, and the genus Ptomascopus, all of which are estimated to have originated in the early Cretaceous (Sikes & Venables, 2013;Cai et al, 2014;Toussaint & Condamine, 2016). Although parental care has been investigated in one species of the three known Ptomascopus species (Peck, 1982;Suzuki et al, 2006), it has not been investigated in Eonecrophorus, which is known only from a single specimen collected in far-eastern Nepal. Cai et al (2014) interpreted the presence of paired stridulatory files on the fifth tergite of mid-Cretaceous silphid fossils as indicative of the origin of parental care because these files are used in parent-offspring communication in extant Nicrophorus.…”

Section: Silphid Beetlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latter two are thought to be relevant to the evolution of care in burying beetles, which contest over protein-dense carrion (Otronen, 1988;Trumbo, 1990) that is susceptible to microbially induced decay and toxicity (Janzen, 1977;Rozen et al, 2008;Arce et al, 2012;McLean et al, 2014;Trumbo, 2017). Silphid beetles have proven to be suitable for comparative experimental studies of parental care: variation in larval dependence on care (Capodeanu-Nagler et al, 2016), the intensity of parental effort (Benowitz et al, 2016), guarding behavior (Suzuki & Nagano, 2006) and anti-microbial secretions (Hoback et al, 2004). Trumbo et al, (2016) examined the ability of the highly parental Nicrophorus orbicollis Say and the less parental Ptomascopus morio Kraatz to use carrion that was degraded by microbial colonization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ptomascopus morio, a species in a genus closely related to Nicrophorus, can be a brood parasite of Nicrophorus concolor Kraatz but also is able to reproduce on a small, fresh carcass. It does not bury carcasses when breeding on its own (Peck, 1982;Suzuki & Nagano, 2006;Sikes & Venables, 2013). Its ability, as well as that of other silphids, to conceal a carcass by other behavior is poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Resource concealment and the evolution of parental care in burying beetles

Trumbo

Sikes

2021

Journal of Zoology

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Comparative experimental study of species can provide insight into behavioral transitions in evolution. The insects offer many such examples for the analysis of parental care. We examined three distantly related species of Nicrophorus and two non-Nicrophorus silphid beetles for their ability to conceal odors from a carcass that cue competitors that attempt to usurp the resource. We predicted that species with well-developed parental care would exhibit a heightened ability to conceal a resource from competitors, even when differences in burying behavior and direct defense were experimentally eliminated. Carcasses were provided to male-female pairs in the laboratory for 3 days and then experimentally buried in the field, without parents, to assess discovery by Nicrophorus and vertebrate scavengers. The burying beetles Ni. orbicollis, Ni. sayi and Ni. pustulatus were far more successful in hiding a prepared resource (>76%) from free-flying Nicrophorus than the less parental Ptomascopus morio or Necrophila americana (<25%). Carcasses provided to P. morio and Ne. americana were also more likely to be discovered by Nicrophorus than non-prepared control carcasses, suggesting that microbially derived odor cues available to competitors were increased by non-Nicrophorus interaction with carcasses. In the absence of burial, carcass preparation had no effect on vertebrate scavenging. We hypothesize that the evolution of burying and carcass modification to conceal a discovered resource from diverse competitors, more so than control of microbial decay, was a critical step in the evolutionary transition to monopolization of a small carcass, nesting and extended parental care in the Silphidae.

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“…Males emit pheromones to attract females (Trumbo et al . 2001) and males but not females try to monopolize carcasses (Suzuki et al . 2005, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Number and size of clutch in Ptomascopus morio (Coleoptera: Silphidae: Nicrophorinae), with comparisons to Nicrophorus

Nagano¹,

Suzuki

2008

Entomological Science

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Ptomascopus morio displays simpler parental care than Nicrophorus species. The effects of carcass size and clutch number on clutch size in P. morio were examined. Clutch size was related to carcass size. There was a negative correlation between number of clutch and clutch size for most sizes of carcass. Longevity of females was shorter when the carcass size was larger, such that total lifetime fecundity did not differ among carcasses of different sizes. The clutch size of P. morio was larger than that of Nicrophorus quadripunctatus. The clutch size of P. morio declined rapidly with repeated clutch production, but that of N. quadripunctatus was rather constant. This indicates that N. quadripunctatus maintains a more constant clutch size than P. morio over several reproductive attempts, although the former displays more complex parental care.

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Mating competition and parentage assessment in Ptomascopus morio (Coleoptera: Silphidae): A case for resource defense polygyny

Cited by 7 publications

References 38 publications

Paternity assurance before and after fertilization by male burying beetles (Nicrophorus quadripunctatus)

Paternity assurance before and after fertilization by male burying beetles (Nicrophorus quadripunctatus)

Resource concealment and the evolution of parental care in burying beetles

Number and size of clutch in Ptomascopus morio (Coleoptera: Silphidae: Nicrophorinae), with comparisons to Nicrophorus

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