scholarly journals Male age mediates reproductive investment and response to paternity assurance

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1764) ◽  
pp. 20131124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle M. Benowitz ◽  
Megan L. Head ◽  
Camellia A. Williams ◽  
Allen J. Moore ◽  
Nick J. Royle
Keyword(s):  
Prenatal Care ◽  
Reproductive Investment ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Offspring Performance ◽  
Male Response ◽  
Male Age ◽  
Paternity Assurance ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
Older Males

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.

scholarly journals Food deprivation affects egg laying and maternal care but not offspring performance in a beetle

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1477-1487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Richardson ◽  
Jennifer Ross ◽  
Per T Smiseth
Keyword(s):  
Food Deprivation ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Breeding Cycle ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Initial State ◽  
Offspring Performance ◽  
Poor Understanding ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
And Control

Abstract Individuals vary with respect to their nutritional state and such variation is an important determinant of the amount of resources individuals allocate toward reproductive functions. Currently, we have a relatively poor understanding of the downstream consequences of food deprivation on different traits associated with reproduction. Here, we address this gap by investigating how food deprivation affected different traits across the breeding cycle in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides; a species that breeds on carcasses of small vertebrates serving as food for both parents and offspring. We found that food-deprived females took longer to start egg laying than control females, which may allow them more time to feed from the carcass. There was no difference between food-deprived and control females in the number, size, laying pattern, or hatching success of eggs, suggesting that this delay allowed females to compensate for their poor initial state. However, food-deprived females spent less time providing care, suggesting that this compensation was incomplete. Finally, we found no evidence for negative effects of food deprivation on the offspring’s growth or survival, which is surprising given that food-deprived females took longer to initiate egg laying and provided less care to their offspring. Our results highlight that food deprivation can have complex effects on parental and offspring traits, and suggest that females face a trade-off between the benefits of mitigating downstream consequences of nutritional stress and the costs associated with delaying the start of reproduction.

scholarly journals Parental care buffers against effects of ambient temperature on offspring performance in an insect

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1443-1450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Grew ◽  
Tom Ratz ◽  
Jon Richardson ◽  
Per T Smiseth
Keyword(s):  
Ambient Temperature ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Female Parent ◽  
Larval Survival ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Offspring Performance ◽  
Behavioral Mechanism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides

AbstractUnderstanding how animals respond to and cope with variation in ambient temperature is an important priority. The reason for this is that ambient temperature is a key component of the physical environment that influences offspring performance in a wide range of ectotherms and endotherms. Here, we investigate whether posthatching parental care provides a behavioral mechanism for buffering against the effects of ambient temperature on offspring in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. We used a 3 × 2 factorial design where we manipulated ambient temperature (15, 20, or 25 °C) and parental care (presence or absence of a female parent after hatching). We found that the effect of ambient temperature on offspring performance was conditional upon the presence or absence of a caring female. Fewer larvae survived in the absence than in the presence of a caring female at 15 °C while there was no difference in larval survival at 20 and 25 °C. Our results show that parental care buffers against some of the detrimental effects of variation in ambient temperature on offspring. We suggest that posthatching parental care may buffer against such effects by creating a more benign environment or by boosting offspring resilience toward stressors. Our results have important implications for our understanding of the evolution of parental care because they suggest that the evolution of parental care could allow species to expand their geographical range to colonize areas with harsher climatic conditions than they otherwise would tolerate.

scholarly journals Trade-offs between personal immunity and reproduction in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 415-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Reavey ◽  
N. D. Warnock ◽  
H. Vogel ◽  
S. C. Cotter
Keyword(s):  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides

scholarly journals Does offspring demand affect parental life-history trade-offs?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.I. Mäenpää ◽  
P.T. Smiseth
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Reproductive Costs ◽  
Parental Effort ◽  
Costs Of Reproduction ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
Future Reproduction ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractLife-history trade-offs between the number and size of offspring produced, and the costs of reproduction on future reproduction and survival can all be affected by different levels of parental effort. Because of these trade-offs the parents and the offspring have different optima for the amount of care given to the current brood, which leads to a conflict between parents and offspring. The offspring, as well as the parents, have the ability to affect parental effort, and thus changes in offspring traits have the potential to cause reproductive costs on the parents. Here, we used a repeated cross-fostering design to manipulate offspring demand during juvenile development in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides to examine whether responding to offspring begging incurs reproductive costs to the parent. After a manipulated first reproductive event, we gave each experimental female, that had been exposed to different levels of offspring demand, a chance to breed again, and monitored their survival. We found that larval demand influences the trade-off between the size and number of offspring produced, but has no impact on the reproductive costs through future reproduction or survival of the parent. The parents do, however, pay an overall fecundity cost for the general success of their first broods, but this cost was not related to the changes in the levels of larval begging. Other traits, including survival showed no costs of reproduction. Survival and the number of larvae successfully raised in the second broods correlated positively, indicating differences in the individual quality of the parents.

scholarly journals Access to Resources Shapes Sex Differences Between Caring Parents

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Ratz ◽  
Katerina Kremi ◽  
Lyndon Leissle ◽  
Jon Richardson ◽  
Per T. Smiseth
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Mass Range ◽  
Environmental Variable ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Access To Resources ◽  
Offspring Performance ◽  
More Care ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
The Impact

In species where both parents cooperate to care for their joint offspring, one sex often provides more care than the other. The magnitude of such sex differences often varies both between and within species and may depend on environmental conditions, such as access to resources, predation risk and interspecific competition. Here we investigated the impact of one such environmental variable – access to resources for breeding – on the magnitude of sex differences in parental care in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. This species breeds on the carcasses of small vertebrates, which are the sole food source for parents and offspring during breeding. We manipulated access to resources by providing pairs with mouse carcasses from a broad mass range (3.65–26.15 g). We then monitored subsequent effects on the duration and amount of care provided by males and females, male and female food consumption and weight change during breeding, and larval traits related to offspring performance. We found that males increased their duration of care as carcass mass increased, while females remained with the brood until it had completed its development irrespective of carcass mass. There were thus more pronounced sex differences in parental care when parents had access to fewer resources for breeding. Overall, our findings show that sex differences between caring parents vary depending on access to resources during breeding. The finding that males extended their duration of care on larger carcasses suggests that access to more resources leads to a shift toward more cooperation between caring parents.

scholarly journals Male age mediates reproductive investment and response to paternity assurance

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1767) ◽  
pp. 20131667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle M. Benowitz ◽  
Megan L. Head ◽  
Camellia A. Williams ◽  
Allen J. Moore ◽  
Nick J. Royle
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Investment ◽  
Male Age ◽  
Paternity Assurance

scholarly journals Adult body growth and reproductive investment vary markedly within and across Atlantic and Pacific herring: a meta-analysis and review of 26 stocks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thassya C. dos Santos Schmidt ◽  
Doug E. Hay ◽  
Svein Sundby ◽  
Jennifer A. Devine ◽  
Guðmundur J. Óskarsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Egg Size ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Reproductive Investment ◽  
Body Growth ◽  
Clupea Harengus ◽  
Pacific Herring ◽  
Atlantic Herring ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Investment In Reproduction

AbstractLife-history traits of Pacific (Clupea pallasii) and Atlantic (Clupea harengus) herring, comprising both local and oceanic stocks subdivided into summer-autumn and spring spawners, were extensively reviewed. The main parameters investigated were body growth, condition, and reproductive investment. Body size of Pacific herring increased with increasing latitude. This pattern was inconsistent for Atlantic herring. Pacific and local Norwegian herring showed comparable body conditions, whereas oceanic Atlantic herring generally appeared stouter. Among Atlantic herring, summer and autumn spawners produced many small eggs compared to spring spawners, which had fewer but larger eggs—findings agreeing with statements given several decades ago. The 26 herring stocks we analysed, when combined across distant waters, showed clear evidence of a trade-off between fecundity and egg size. The size-specific individual variation, often ignored, was substantial. Additional information on biometrics clarified that oceanic stocks were generally larger and had longer life spans than local herring stocks, probably related to their longer feeding migrations. Body condition was only weakly, positively related to assumingly in situ annual temperatures (0–30 m depth). Contrarily, body growth (cm × y−1), taken as an integrator of ambient environmental conditions, closely reflected the extent of investment in reproduction. Overall, Pacific and local Norwegian herring tended to cluster based on morphometric and reproductive features, whereas oceanic Atlantic herring clustered separately. Our work underlines that herring stocks are uniquely adapted to their habitats in terms of trade-offs between fecundity and egg size whereas reproductive investment mimics the productivity of the water in question.

Tales of lizard tails: effects of tail autotomy on subsequent survival and growth of free-ranging hatchling Uta stansburiana

1997 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Niewiarowski ◽  
J. D. Congdon ◽  
A. E. Dunham ◽  
L. J. Vitt ◽  
D. W. Tinkle
Keyword(s):  
Natural Populations ◽  
Reproductive Investment ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Growth And Survival ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
Uta Stansburiana ◽  
Tail Autotomy ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Free Ranging

Potential costs and benefits of tail autotomy in lizards have been inferred almost exclusively from experimental study in semi-natural enclosures and from indirect comparative evidence from natural populations. We present complementary evidence of the costs of tail autotomy to the lizard Uta stansburiana from detailed demographic study of a natural population. On initial capture, we broke the tails of a large sample of free-ranging hatchlings (560) and left the tails of another large sample (455) intact, and then followed subsequent hatchling growth and survival over a 3-year period. Surprisingly, in 1 out of the 3 years of study, survival of female hatchlings with broken tails exceeded that of female hatchlings with intact tails. Furthermore, no effects of tail loss on survivorship were detected for male hatchlings. However, in 2 years when recaptures were very frequent (1961, 1962), growth rates of hatchlings with broken tails were significantly slower than those of their counterparts with intact tails. We discuss our results in the broader context of estimating the relative costs and benefits of tail autotomy in natural populations, and suggest that long-term demographic studies will provide the best opportunity to assess realized fitness costs and benefits with minimum bias. We also describe how experimentally induced tail autotomy can be used as a technique to complement experimental manipulation of reproductive investment in the study of life-history trade-offs.

scholarly journals Experience does not alter alternative mating tactics in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig A. Walling ◽  
Clare E. Stamper ◽  
Claire L. Salisbury ◽  
Allen J. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Mating Tactics ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Mating Tactics ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides
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