Flexible compensation of uniparental care: female poison frogs take over when males disappear

Abstract

Lay SummaryCaring mothers step in for deadbeat dads. Flexible compensation has evolved as a countermeasure against reduced or lost parental care and is commonly found in biparental species. In the poison frog Allobates femoralis with obligatory male-only care, we show that females flexibly perform tadpole transport when males disappear. This demonstrates that compensatory flexibility also evolved in species with unisexual care, suggesting that parental care systems are more flexible than previously thought.

The peculiar breeding biology of the Amazonian frog Allobates subfolionidificans (Aromobatidae)

“…These characteristics are shared with many other Allobates species with exotrophic tadpoles including A. femoralis, the best-studied congeneric species regarding parental care (e.g., Ringler et al 2013Ringler et al , 2015. Male A. subfolionidificans visited egg clutches regularly, probably to hydrate them, and took concomitant care of more than one clutch.…”

“…In addition, in species such as Allobates masniger (Morales 2002) and Allobates nidicola (Caldwell and Lima 2003) eggs hatch into endotrophic tadpoles that complete development in a terrestrial nest. Reproductive modes found in Allobates comprise many behavioral particularities that include 1) the use of a large repertory of visual, acoustic and tactile signals during long interactions for courtship and mating such as in A. caeruleodactylus (Lima et al 2002) and A. femoralis (Boulenger 1884) (Montanarin et al 2011), 2) the use of different oviposition sites such as foam nests constructed by leptodactylids in A. sumtuosus Morales 2002 (Kok and Ernst 2007), fallen leaves on the forest floor by A. marchesianus (Melin 1941) (Lima and Keller 2003) and bromeliads by A. bromelicola (Test 1956), as well as 3) intersexual flexibility in parental care as observed in Allobates femoralis (e.g., Ringler et al 2013Ringler et al , 2015. Many aspects of these behaviors are completely unknown for most species of dendrobatoid (Dendrobatidae + Aromobatidae) frogs, especially due to the high rate of species descriptions within the genus.…”

Flexible compensation of uniparental care: things are not always what they seem

“…In such cases, individuals of only one sex provide care, and when the caregiver dies or deserts the whole brood, the remaining parent may adopt the parental behaviour in order to compensate for its mate's absence ('flexible compensation of uniparental care', sensu Ringler et al 2015).…”

“…For example, in frogs with male-only care, the absence of a parental male results in females performing critical tadpole transportation to water (Allobates femoralis, Ringler et al 2015; or brood protection (by repelling egg predators and preventing egg desiccation and fungal propagation) as efficient as their mates (Eleutherodactylus johnstonei, Bourne 1998).…”

“…Apart from a few studies (e.g., Ringler et al 2015, Bourne 1998, Beal & Tallamy 2006, flexible compensation of uniparental care is usually assumed based on observations of the behaviour towards abandoned offspring adopted by the sex that usually does not provide care, without testing its effects on offspring fitness (frogs : Simon 1983;Bickford 2004, harvestmen: Machado & Oliveira 1998Willemart & Gnaspini 2004). This is also the case for the harvestman S. proximum, in which the behaviour of harem-owning males of standing on unattended clutches has been interpreted as flexible compensation of uniparental care (Buzatto & Machado 2009;Alissa et al 2017).…”