Access to Resources Shapes Sex Differences Between Caring Parents

Ratz, Tom; Kremi, Katerina; Leissle, Lyndon; Richardson, Jon; Smiseth, Per T.

doi:10.3389/fevo.2021.712425

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 75 publications

(107 reference statements)

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“…This increase in competition could eventually lead to a selection of uniparental care over biparental care when resource availability is low during breeding. Indeed, this notion aligns with the results of Ratz et al (2021) and Kishida and Suzuki (2010) who found that males left earlier on smaller than on larger carcasses.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Harsh nutritional environment has positive and negative consequences for family living in a burying beetle

Keppner

Laubenthal

Prang

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Harsh environmental conditions in form of low food availability for both offspring and parents alike can affect breeding behavior and success. There has been evidence that food scarce environments can induce competition between family members, and this might be intensified when parents are caring as a pair and not alone. On the other hand, it is possible that a harsh, food-poor environment could also promote cooperative behaviors within a family, leading, for example, to a higher breeding success of pairs than of single parents. We studied the influence of a harsh nutritional environment on the fitness outcome of family living in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. These beetles use vertebrate carcasses for reproduction. We manipulated food availability on two levels: before and during breeding. We then compared the effect of these manipulations in broods with either single females or biparentally breeding males and females. We show that pairs of beetles that experienced a food-poor environment before breeding consumed a higher quantity of the carcass than well-fed pairs or single females. Nevertheless, they were more successful in raising a brood with higher larval survival compared to pairs that did not experience a food shortage before breeding. We also show that food availability during breeding and social condition had independent effects on the mass of the broods raised, with lighter broods in biparental families than in uniparental ones and on smaller carcasses. Our study thus indicates that a harsh nutritional environment can increase both cooperative as well as competitive interactions between family members. Moreover, our results suggest that it can either hamper or drive the formation of a family because parents choose to restrain reproductive investment in a current brood or are encouraged to breed in a food-poor environment, depending on former experiences and their own nutritional status.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Harsh nutritional environment has positive and negative consequences for family living in a burying beetle

Keppner

Laubenthal

Prang

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Large carcasses, on the other hand, might be very costly to maintain and defend, making it unprofitable to raise broods of small sizes. That larger carcasses are more costly to prepare was also suggested in previous studies (de Gasperin & Kilner, 2015 ; Ratz et al, 2021 ; Xu & Suzuki, 2001 ). For example, de Gasperin and Kilner ( 2015 ) found that the preparation of larger carcasses resulted in a reduced lifespan of male beetles.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

“…In general, our results highlight that males are able to evaluate resource size and are consistent with the results of previous studies that examined male care behavior under biparental care. Bartlett ( 1988 ), Kishida and Suzuki ( 2010 ) and Ratz et al ( 2021 ), for example, found that males are sensitive to carcass size and leave the brood earlier as carcass mass decreases. Males of other species are also known to monitor resource availability (e.g., Barbasch et al, 2020 ) or other non‐social environmental factors (e.g., Green & McCormick, 2004 ) and adjust care behavior accordingly.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When caring biparentally, females predominantly provide direct care (Scott & Traniello, 1990 ; Smiseth et al, 2005 ; Smiseth & Moore, 2004b ; Walling et al, 2008 ), whereas males often focus on indirect care i.e., carcass maintenance and defense (Fetherston et al, 1990 ; Trumbo, 1991 , 2007 ). Additionally, it is known that males usually desert earlier than females (Bartlett, 1988 ; Fetherston et al, 1990 ; Müller et al, 2007 ; Parker et al, 2015 ; Ratz et al, 2021 ; Royle et al, 2014 ; Scott, 1998a ; Ward et al, 2009 ). However, if the female deserts or dies, males are able to compensate for the loss of their partner (Bartlett, 1988 ; Jenkins et al, 2000 ; Müller et al, 1998 ; Scott, 1989 ; Smiseth et al, 2005 ; Trumbo & Fernandez, 1995 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Brood size, food availability, and body size affects male care decisions and offspring performance

Sahm,

Conrad,

Scheu

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Wong et al., 2013). Parental care can occur before or after the birth of offspring and includes various behaviors, such as the protection of offspring from predators, the maintenance of a favorable microenvironment and offspring provisioning (Balshine, 2012;Smiseth et al., 2012;Trumbo, 2012) amongst others. Across the animal kingdom, female care is much more widespread than male care (Clutton-Brock, 1991) and even in biparental families, males frequently invest less than females and desert the brood earlier or with a higher probability. The reason for this asymmetry is thought to lie in sex differences in the strength of sexual selection, in the association with the embryo, and in the certainty of parentage (Liker

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“…In further studies, a more direct estimate, such as vegetation growth in the breeding site and the distribution of animal food during the breeding season, will be valuable to justify our conclusions. Furthermore, a recent experimental study on the burying beetle (Nicrophorus vespilloide) demonstrates that high abundance of food promotes instead of reducing cooperation between parents (Ratz et al 2021). It would be worthwhile to test the generality of this finding using large-scale databases on insects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Does ecology and life history predict parental cooperation in birds? A comparative analysis

Long

Liu

Liker

et al. 2022

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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In animals, species differ remarkably in parental care strategies. For instance, male-only care is prevalent in teleost fishes, while biparental care predominates in birds and female-only care is widespread in mammals. Understanding the origin and maintenance of diversified parental care systems is a key challenge in evolutionary ecology. It has been suggested that ecological factors and life-history traits play important roles in the evolution of parental care, but the generality of these predictions has not been investigated across a broad range of taxa. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses and detailed parental care data from 1101 avian species that represent 119 families of 26 orders, here we investigate whether parental strategies are associated with ecological variables (i.e., food type, nest structure, and coloniality) and life-history characteristics (i.e., chick development mode and body size). We show that parental care strategies are in relation to coloniality (solitary, semi-colonial, colonial) and chick development mode (altricial vs. precocial). Colonial and altricial species provide more biparental care than solitary and precocial species, respectively. In contrast, food type (plant, invertebrate, vertebrate), nest structure (open vs. closed), and body size do not covary systematically with parental care patterns in birds. Taken together, our results suggest that living in groups and/or having high-demand offspring are strongly associated with biparental care. Towards the end, we discuss future research directions for the study of parental care evolution. Significance statementAnimal species differ remarkably in the amount of care parents provide to their offspring and in the distribution of care tasks over the parents. In birds, for example, the young of some species are quite independent from the start, while the young of other species are helpless after hatching, requiring a lot of care. Moreover, either the female or the male does most of the caring in some species, while the parental tasks are shared equally in still other species. To understand the diversified parental care patterns, we applied advanced comparative methods to a large data set comprising over 1000 bird species. The analysis reveals that the parents tend to share their care duties equally when they live in groups and/or have offspring that are born helpless, and that parental care patterns are not associated with diet, nest type or body size. Hence, living in groups and having high-demand offspring seem to play important roles in the evolution of parental care.

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Access to Resources Shapes Sex Differences Between Caring Parents

Cited by 7 publications

References 75 publications

Harsh nutritional environment has positive and negative consequences for family living in a burying beetle

Harsh nutritional environment has positive and negative consequences for family living in a burying beetle

Brood size, food availability, and body size affects male care decisions and offspring performance

Does ecology and life history predict parental cooperation in birds? A comparative analysis

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