Stridulation is unimportant for effective parental care in two species of burying beetle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Schrader ◽  
Jack Galanek
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Burying Beetle

scholarly journals Aposematism in the burying beetle? Dual function of anal fluid in parental care and chemical defense

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1414-1422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carita Lindstedt ◽  
Giuseppe Boncoraglio ◽  
Sheena Cotter ◽  
James Gilbert ◽  
Rebecca M Kilner
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Chemical Defense ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
Burying Beetle

scholarly journals Evolutionary change in the construction of the nursery environment when parents are prevented from caring for their young directly

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (48) ◽  
pp. e2102450118
Author(s):  
Ana Duarte ◽  
Darren Rebar ◽  
Allysa C. Hallett ◽  
Benjamin J. M. Jarrett ◽  
Rebecca M. Kilner
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Experimental Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Change ◽  
Direct Care ◽  
Dead Body ◽  
Extended Phenotype ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Burying Beetles ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
Cross Fostering

Parental care can be partitioned into traits that involve direct engagement with offspring and traits that are expressed as an extended phenotype and influence the developmental environment, such as constructing a nursery. Here, we use experimental evolution to test whether parents can evolve modifications in nursery construction when they are experimentally prevented from supplying care directly to offspring. We exposed replicate experimental populations of burying beetles (Nicrophorus vespilloides) to different regimes of posthatching care by allowing larvae to develop in the presence (Full Care) or absence of parents (No Care). After only 13 generations of experimental evolution, we found an adaptive evolutionary increase in the pace at which parents in the No Care populations converted a dead body into a carrion nest for larvae. Cross-fostering experiments further revealed that No Care larvae performed better on a carrion nest prepared by No Care parents than did Full Care larvae. We conclude that parents construct the nursery environment in relation to their effectiveness at supplying care directly, after offspring are born. When direct care is prevented entirely, they evolve to make compensatory adjustments to the nursery in which their young will develop. The rapid evolutionary change observed in our experiments suggests there is considerable standing genetic variation for parental care traits in natural burying beetle populations—for reasons that remain unclear.

Influences of Parental Care and Food Deprivation on Regulation of Body Mass in a Burying Beetle

Ethology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 121 (10) ◽  
pp. 985-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen T. Trumbo ◽  
Ervis Xhihani
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Food Deprivation ◽  
Burying Beetle

Feeding upon and preserving a carcass: the function of prehatch parental care in a burying beetle

2017 ◽  
Vol 130 ◽  
pp. 241-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen T. Trumbo
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Burying Beetle

scholarly journals The Importance Of Pre-Hatching Paternal Care On Offspring Fitness In Burying Beetle, Nicrophorus Vespilloides Herbst.

1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-54
Author(s):  
Sharmin Musa
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Group ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Paternal Care ◽  
Male Parent ◽  
Direct Care ◽  
Removal Experiment ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Offspring Fitness ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
Positive Effect

A male-removal experiment was performed to determine if the value of male parental care depended on the timing of the help. In the experiment male parent was removed before the carcass was prepared for breeding, after partial carcass preparation, after complete carcass preparation, before direct care for the larvae and males were allowed to disperse naturally after caring for the larvae. It was found that where the male provided complete pre-hatching care or both preand post-hatching care offspring were larger and in better condition. Mass of offspring at eclosion was affected by male removal (F3,1266 = 5.087, p = 0.002) though size of offspring was not affected by the treatment group. Complete prehatching care had a positive effect on development compared to limited care (F3, 1267 = 8.501, p < 0.000) but this effect disappeared if males remained after the larvae hatched. Larval survivorship did not vary among treatments (F3,122 = 0.531, p = 0.662).  

scholarly journals Development and application of 14 microsatellite markers in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides reveals population genetic differentiation at local spatial scales

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Pascoal ◽  
Rebecca M. Kilner
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Differentiation ◽  
Microsatellite Markers ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Genetic Structuring ◽  
Population Genetic Differentiation ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
Limited Dispersal

Burying beetles (genus Nicrophorus) are relatively rare among insects in providing sophisticated parental care. Consequently, they have become model species in research analysing social evolution, the evolution of parental care and mating systems. We used the recently published N. vespilloides genome and transcriptome to develop microsatellite markers. Specifically, we developed 14 polymorphic markers with five to 13 alleles per locus and used them to investigate levels of genetic differentiation in four south Cambridgeshire (UK) populations of N. vespilloides, separated by 21 km at most. The markers revealed significant genetic structuring among populations (global FST = 0.023) with all but one of the pairwise comparisons among populations being significant. The single exception was the comparison between the two closest populations, which are approximately 2.5 km apart. In general, the microsatellite markers showed lower observed heterozygosity than expected. We infer that there is limited dispersal between populations and potentially also some inbreeding within them and suggest that this may be due to habitat fragmentation. We discuss these results in the context of recent laboratory experiments on inbreeding and beetle flight.

scholarly journals Adaptive evolution of synchronous egg-hatching in compensation for the loss of parental care

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1885) ◽  
pp. 20181452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. M. Jarrett ◽  
Darren Rebar ◽  
Hannah B. Haynes ◽  
Miranda R. Leaf ◽  
Chay Halliwell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
The Body ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Burying Beetles ◽  
Egg Hatching ◽  
Asynchronous Hatching ◽  
Nicrophorus Vespilloides ◽  
Experimental Populations ◽  
And Control ◽  
Better Than

Interactions among siblings are finely balanced between rivalry and cooperation, but the factors that tip the balance towards cooperation are incompletely understood. Previous observations of insect species suggest that (i) sibling cooperation is more likely when siblings hatch at the same time, and (ii) this is more common when parents provide little to no care. In this paper, we tested these ideas experimentally with the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides . Burying beetles convert the body of a small dead vertebrate into an edible nest for their larvae, and provision and guard their young after hatching. In our first experiment, we simulated synchronous or asynchronous hatching by adding larvae at different intervals to the carrion-breeding resource. We found that ‘synchronously’ hatched broods survived better than ‘asynchronously’ hatched broods, probably because ‘synchronous hatching’ generated larger teams of larvae, that together worked more effectively to penetrate the carrion nest and feed upon it. In our second experiment, we measured the synchronicity of hatching in experimental populations that had evolved for 22 generations without any post-hatching care, and control populations that had evolved in parallel with post-hatching care. We found that larvae were more likely to hatch earlier, and at the same time as their broodmates, in the experimental populations that evolved without post-hatching care. We suggest that synchronous hatching enables offspring to help each other when parents are not present to provide care. However, we also suggest that greater levels of cooperation among siblings cannot compensate fully for the loss of parental care.

Seasonal variation in parental care, offspring development, and reproductive success in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespillo

1999 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
IngE. Meierhofer ◽  
Horst H. Schwarz ◽  
Josef K. Müller
Keyword(s):  
Seasonal Variation ◽  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Parental Care ◽  
Burying Beetle ◽  
Offspring Development

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.

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