Cost and Necessity of Parental Care in the Burying Beetle Nicrophorus quadripunctatus

Satou, Aya; Nisimura, Tomoyoshi; Numata, Hideharu

doi:10.2108/zsj.18.975

Cited by 15 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Unlike the N. vespilloides larvae (Capodeanu-Nägler et al., 2016, Eggert et al., 1998), the N. quadripunctatus larvae have poor ability to self-feed and most larvae are not able to survive to dispersal stage (ca. 120 h from hatching) in the absence of parents (Satou et al., 2001). The poor self-feeding ability would contribute to detect the cost of begging, because the N. quadripunctatus larvae waste their energy reserves as they move to beg but could not obtain foods.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Parental Volatile Pheromone Triggers Offspring Begging in a Burying Beetle

et al. 2019

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SummaryParental care is a notable aspect of reproductive effort in many animals. The interaction between offspring begging and the parental feeding response is an important communication mechanism that regulates offspring food supply, and reducing the cost of superfluous begging is beneficial to both parents and offspring. Here we concluded that parents of the burying beetle Nicrophorus quadripunctatus inform their offspring of their preparation for provisioning by emitting “provisioning pheromone.” Female parents emitted an antimicrobial aromatic compound, 2-phenoxyethanol, in their regurgitation before provisioning, and this compound elicits begging behavior from their offspring. Furthermore, begging incurs growth and survival costs, and parents spent more than 85% of their time in close proximity to their offspring without provisioning. Therefore, it is suggested that limiting offspring begging during provisioning is beneficial to both parents and offspring. We report here a novel aspect of parent-offspring communication in family life.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Parental Volatile Pheromone Triggers Offspring Begging in a Burying Beetle

et al. 2019

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“…However, most autecological work has focused on N. quadripunctatus (e.g. Satou et al 2001;Xu and Suzuki 2001;Nisimura et al 2002). Less is known about the other nepalensis-group species of Japan, N. maculifrons and N. montivagus.…”

Section: Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Revision of Nicrophorus in part: new species and inferred phylogeny of the nepalensis-group based on evidence from morphology and mitochondrial DNA (Coleoptera:Silphidae:Nicrophorinae)

Sikes

Trumbo

Madge³

2006

Invert. Systematics

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Carrion beetles of the genus Nicrophorus Fabricius, 1775 (Silphidae) are well known for their biparental brood care and monopolisation of small vertebrate carcasses in subterranean crypts. Although the taxonomy of New World species has received modern attention, the fauna of Asia, primarily of the nepalensis-group of species, has not. Herein we revise this species-group and describe as new the following seven species: Nicrophorus charon Sikes & Madge (Sulawesi), . We obtained a preliminary phylogeny using morphology and mtDNA (COII). This was inferred using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods with the Mkv and GTR+I+G models (parsimony was rejected by the Akaike information criterion for being excessively parameter-rich). The phylogenetic signal in the morphological dataset was not strong and results were confounded by a 'long-branch' species, N. reticulatus. The signal was stronger in the combined dataset and the COII-only dataset. The molecular phylogeny supported the new status of species N. trumboi and N. melissae. Support was found for a mainland origin of the group with subsequent radiations into the Malay Archipelago.

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“…N. orbicollis , which is one of the most basal species within the genus Nicrophorus [ 33 ], appears to be a beetle with obligatory parental care, as offspring do not survive in the absence of parents, whereas parental care is facultative in N. pustulatus and N. vespilloides [ 24 , 25 ]. Likewise, parental care appears to be facultative in many other Nicrophorus species, including N. mexicanus [ 34 ], N. defodiens, N. tomentosus [ 24 ] and N. quadripunctatus [ 35 ]. This raises the question, therefore, as to why N. orbicollis is so exceptional among other Nicrophorus species with regard to offspring dependency, and more particularly, what causes the striking helplessness of offspring in the absence of parents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offspring dependence on parental care and the role of parental transfer of oral fluids in burying beetles

et al. 2018

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BackgroundImmature stages of many animals can forage and feed on their own, whereas others depend on their parents’ assistance to obtain or process food. But how does such dependency evolve, and which offspring and parental traits are involved? Burying beetles (Nicrophorus) provide extensive biparental care, including food provisioning to their offspring. Interestingly, there is substantial variation in the reliance of offspring on post-hatching care among species. Here, we examine the proximate mechanisms underlying offspring dependence, focusing on the larvae of N. orbicollis, which are not able to survive in the absence of parents. We specifically asked whether the high offspring dependence is caused by (1) a low starvation tolerance, (2) a low ability to self-feed or (3) the need to obtain parental oral fluids. Finally, we determined how much care (i.e. duration of care) they require to be able to survive.ResultsWe demonstrate that N. orbicollis larvae are not characterized by a lower starvation tolerance than larvae of the more independent species. Hatchlings of N. orbicollis are generally able to self-feed, but the efficiency depends on the kind of food presented and differs from the more independent species. Further, we show that even when providing highly dependent N. orbicollis larvae with easy ingestible liquefied mice carrion, only few of them survived to pupation. However, adding parental oral fluids significantly increased their survival rate. Finally, we demonstrate that survival and growth of dependent N. orbicollis larvae is increased greatly by only a few hours of parental care.ConclusionsConsidering the fact that larvae of other burying beetle species are able to survive in the absence of care, the high dependence of N. orbicollis larvae is puzzling. Even though they have not lost the ability to self-feed, an easily digestible, liquefied carrion meal is not sufficient to ensure their survival. However, our results indicate that the transfer of parental oral fluids is an essential component of care. In the majority of mammals, offspring rely on the exchange of fluids (i.e. milk) to survive, and our findings suggest that even in subsocial insects, such as burying beetles, parental fluids can significantly affect offspring survival.

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Cost and Necessity of Parental Care in the Burying Beetle Nicrophorus quadripunctatus

Cited by 15 publications

References 20 publications

A Parental Volatile Pheromone Triggers Offspring Begging in a Burying Beetle

A Parental Volatile Pheromone Triggers Offspring Begging in a Burying Beetle

Revision of Nicrophorus in part: new species and inferred phylogeny of the nepalensis-group based on evidence from morphology and mitochondrial DNA (Coleoptera:Silphidae:Nicrophorinae)

Offspring dependence on parental care and the role of parental transfer of oral fluids in burying beetles

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