Sibling Cooperation in Earwig Families Provides Insights into the Early Evolution of Social Life

Falk, Joachim; Wong, Janine W. Y.; Kölliker, Mathias; Meunier, Joël

doi:10.1086/675364

Cited by 54 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Nevertheless, our study leaves some unanswered issues. First, we focused on sibling competition, thus ignoring the 370 potential for sibling cooperation (Forbes, 2007;Falk, Wong, Kölliker & Meunier, 2014). A recent study on our study species suggests that sibling cooperation occurs in the absence of caring parents (Schrader, Jarrett, & Kilner, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joint effects of brood size and resource availability on sibling competition

2017

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joint effects of brood size and resource availability on sibling competition

2017

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“…However, investigating the occurrence of these effects in precocial invertebrates, in which juveniles exhibit early foraging capabilities and consequently only facultatively rely on parental resources [14,15], could provide crucial information on the early evolution of parental care. Indeed, transgenerational costs could be a key promoter of the maintenance of family life when parental loss has limited (if any) short-term costs in terms of offspring survival, a scenario that applies to precocial systems and probably prevailed in the early evolution of family life [16]. Furthermore, studying the consequences of parental loss in precocial invertebrates could help to determine whether the tight association between parental care and offspring survival (as is found in altricial vertebrates) is a prerequisite for the expression of transgenerational costs, thus shedding light on the importance of these costs in the multiple forms of family life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term benefits, but transgenerational costs of maternal loss in an insect with facultative maternal care

et al. 2015

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A lack of parental care is generally assumed to entail substantial fitness costs for offspring that ultimately select for the maintenance of family life across generations. However, it is unknown whether these costs arise when parental care is facultative, thus questioning their fundamental importance in the early evolution of family life. Here, we investigated the short-term, long-term and transgenerational effects of maternal loss in the European earwig Forficula auricularia, an insect with facultative post-hatching maternal care. We showed that maternal loss did not influence the developmental time and survival rate of juveniles, but surprisingly yielded adults of larger body and forceps size, two traits associated with fitness benefits. In a cross-breeding/ cross-fostering experiment, we then demonstrated that maternal loss impaired the expression of maternal care in adult offspring. Interestingly, the resulting transgenerational costs were not only mediated by the early-life experience of tending mothers, but also by inherited, parent-of-origin-specific effects expressed in juveniles. Orphaned females abandoned their juveniles for longer and fed them less than maternally-tended females, while foster mothers defended juveniles of orphaned females less well than juveniles of maternally-tended females. Overall, these findings reveal the key importance of transgenerational effects in the early evolution of family life.

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“…We then set up a mother-removal experiment using 40 clutches to test whether (4) low maternal expenditure on egg care can be beneficial to the female, e.g. in terms of 2 nd clutch production, and whether (5) these benefits remain significant after females interact with their hatched nymphs [18,19,22,25]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mother and offspring fitness in an insect with maternal care: phenotypic trade-offs between egg number, egg mass and egg care

Koch

Meunier

2014

BMC Evol Biol

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BackgroundOviparous females have three main options to increase their reproductive success: investing into egg number, egg mass and/or egg care. Although allocating resources to either of these three components is known to shape offspring number and size, potential trade-offs among them may have key impacts on maternal and offspring fitness. Here, we tested the occurrence of phenotypic trade-offs between egg number, egg mass and maternal expenditure on egg care in the European earwig, Forficula auricularia, an insect with pre- and post-hatching forms of maternal care. In particular, we used a series of laboratory observations and experiments to investigate whether these three components non-additively influenced offspring weight and number at hatching, and whether they were associated with potential costs to females in terms of future reproduction.ResultsWe found negative associations between egg number and mass as well as between egg number and maternal expenditure on egg care. However, these trade-offs could only be detected after statistically correcting for female weight at egg laying. Hatchling number was not determined by single or additive effects among the three life-history traits, but instead by pairwise interactions among them. In particular, offspring number was positively associated with the number of eggs only in clutches receiving high maternal care or consisting of heavy eggs, and negatively associated with mean egg mass in clutches receiving low care. In contrast, offspring weight was positively associated with egg mass only. Finally, maternal expenditure on egg care reduced their future reproduction, but this effect was only detected when mothers were experimentally isolated from their offspring at egg hatching.ConclusionsOverall, our study reveals simultaneous trade-offs between the number, mass and care of eggs. It also demonstrates that these factors interact in their impact on offspring production, and that maternal expenditure on egg care possibly shapes female future reproduction. These findings emphasize that studying reproductive success requires consideration of phenotypic trade-offs between egg-number, egg mass and egg care in oviparous species.

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Sibling Cooperation in Earwig Families Provides Insights into the Early Evolution of Social Life

Cited by 54 publications

References 44 publications

Joint effects of brood size and resource availability on sibling competition

Joint effects of brood size and resource availability on sibling competition

Short-term benefits, but transgenerational costs of maternal loss in an insect with facultative maternal care

Mother and offspring fitness in an insect with maternal care: phenotypic trade-offs between egg number, egg mass and egg care

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