takeout gene expression is associated with temporal kin recognition

Abstract

A key component of parental care is avoiding killing and eating one's own offspring. Many organisms commit infanticide but switch to parental care when their own offspring are expected, known as temporal kin recognition. It is unclear why such types of indirect kin recognition are so common across taxa. One possibility is that temporal kin recognition may evolve through alteration of simple mechanisms, such as co-opting mechanisms that influence the regulation of timing and feeding in other contexts. Here, we determine whether takeout , a gene implicated in coordinating feeding, influences temporal kin recognition in Nicrophorus orbicollis . We found that takeout expression was not associated with non-parental feeding changes resulting from hunger, or a general transition to the full parental care repertoire. However, beetles that accepted and provided care to their offspring had a higher takeout expression than beetles that committed infanticide. Together, these data support the idea that the evolution of temporal kin recognition may be enabled by co-option of mechanisms that integrate feeding behaviour in other contexts.

Offspring overcome poor parenting by being better parents

“…After we observed that the focal females’ larvae had hatched, we provided the focal female with an unrelated, mixed brood of 10 larvae. Burying beetles identify their offspring temporally and eat any larvae that arrive too early on the carcass (Oldekop et al, 2007, Potticary et al, 2023); thus, we only provided females with larvae after her own larvae had hatched. For the full care treatment, we allowed females to associate with larvae until at least two of the larvae had dispersed from the breeding carcass (∼7-8 days).…”