Making a meal of mother

Evans, Theodore A.; Wallis, Elycia; Elgar, Mark A.

doi:10.1038/376299a0

Cited by 61 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Matriphagy is an unusual, self-sacrificial form of parental care in which the young eat their mother at the end of the care period. This habit has been reported in some species of insects (Kohno 1997;Pollock and Normark 2002) and spiders (Evans et al 1995;Kim et al 2000;Toyama 1999Toyama , 2001. Such an extreme form of care (Evans et al 1995) can be interpreted as an altruistic behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…This habit has been reported in some species of insects (Kohno 1997;Pollock and Normark 2002) and spiders (Evans et al 1995;Kim et al 2000;Toyama 1999Toyama , 2001. Such an extreme form of care (Evans et al 1995) can be interpreted as an altruistic behavior. However, most studies on matriphagy have remained descriptive, and very few empirical studies have been conducted to assess the fitness benefits and costs of this behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

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Matriphagy in the hump earwig, Anechura harmandi (Dermaptera: Forficulidae), increases the survival rates of the offspring

Suzuki

Kitamura

Matsubayashi

2005

J Ethol

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Matriphagy in the hump earwig, Anechura harmandi (Dermaptera: Forficulidae), increases the survival rates of the offspring

Suzuki

Kitamura

Matsubayashi

2005

J Ethol

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“…Even though we observed that females can produce a second clutch shortly after the first one failed, it seems that females are unable to produce another clutch after the first one has hatched. Evans et al [19] described that the ovaries of D. ergandros degrade to produce trophic eggs after oviposition and there seems to be no plasticity even in cases where all offspring are removed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In one case (3.6%), paternity was shared between at least two fathers [13]. In these spiders, females hunt and share prey with the offspring [17,18], and some females are consumed by their offspring (matriphagy) [19], while others stay alive until the spiderlings mature (J.R. 2011-2012, personal observation). Evans [17] showed that females recognize own offspring.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offspring dynamics affect food provisioning, growth and mortality in a brood-caring spider

2014

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In brood-caring species, family members are faced with a conflict over resource distribution. While parents are selected to adapt the amount of care according to their offspring's needs, offspring might be selected to demand more care than optimal for parents. Recent studies on birds have shown that the social network structure of offspring affects the amount of care and thus the fitness of families. Such a network structure of repeated interactions is probably influenced by within-brood relatedness. We experimentally manipulated the group composition in a brood-caring spider to test how the presence of unrelated spiderlings affects the dynamics between female and brood as well as within broods. Broods consisting of siblings grew better and had a lower mortality compared with mixed broods, no matter whether the caring female was a genetic or foster mother. Interestingly, we found that foster mothers lost weight when caring for sibling broods, whereas females caring for mixed broods gained weight. This indicates that females may be willing to share more prey when the brood contains exclusively siblings even if the entire brood is unrelated to the female. Resource distribution may thus be negotiated by offspring dynamics that could have a signalling function to females.

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“…Groups normally begin as a single mother and her offspring, but immigrants are accepted (Main, 1988;Evans et al, 1995;Evans, a, 1998bEvans, , 1999. Diaea live in leaf nests that are essential for survival as foraging areas -crab spiders are ambush predators and do not build webs -and protective retreats from predators (Evans, 1998a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male work and sex ratio in social crab spiders

Evans

2000

Insectes soc.

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Biased sex ratios may alter the contribution that individuals of either sex make to group living. Such a possibility has not been examined in social spiders, in part as adult male spider anatomy and behaviour are focussed on mating. Subadult male behaviour was examined in two congener social crab spiders that have similar ecological niches, Diaea ergandros with an equal sex ratio and D. socialis with a female-biased sex ratio. A laboratory experiment that varied sex ratios of groups of subadults of the two species found that nest construction in D. ergandros did not vary with sex ratio, but that of D. socialis did as males did not contribute to nest construction. This may suggest that among social species, biased sex ratios might influence the appearance of dronelike behaviour.

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Making a meal of mother

Cited by 61 publications

References 5 publications

Matriphagy in the hump earwig, Anechura harmandi (Dermaptera: Forficulidae), increases the survival rates of the offspring

Matriphagy in the hump earwig, Anechura harmandi (Dermaptera: Forficulidae), increases the survival rates of the offspring

Offspring dynamics affect food provisioning, growth and mortality in a brood-caring spider

Male work and sex ratio in social crab spiders

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