Parent–offspring conflict and the genetic trade-offs shaping parental investment

Kölliker, Mathias; Boos, Stefan; Wong, Janine W. Y.; Röllin, Lilian; Stucki, Dimitri; Raveh, Shirley; Wu, Min; Meunier, Joël

doi:10.1038/ncomms7850

Cited by 44 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…From the date of egg laying until several weeks after egg hatching, mothers provide extensive forms of care to their eggs and juveniles (called nymphs) that include the protection against predators and pathogens, as well as the provisioning of nymphs with food (e.g. through regurgitation ;Lamb 1976;Kölliker 2007;Boos et al 2014;Koch and Meunier 2014;Diehl et al 2015;Kölliker et al 2015).…”

Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The population determines whether and how life-history traits vary between reproductive events in an insect with maternal care

et al. 2016

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The last reproductive event of a female is often associated with major changes in terms of both maternal and offspring life-history traits. However, the nature of these changes and the importance of population-specific environmental constraints in shaping their expression are difficult to predict and, as a consequence, poorly understood. Here, we investigated whether and how life-history traits vary between reproductive events and whether this variation is population-dependent in the European earwig Forficula auricularia. In this insect species, females produce up to two clutches during their lifetime and express extensive forms of maternal care. We conducted a common garden experiment, in which we measured 11 life-history traits of the first and second clutches of 132 females originating from three populations. Our results showed that clutch size was higher and the level of care expressed towards juveniles lower in second as compared to the first clutches in all three populations. In contrast, we found a population-specific effect on whether and how the reproductive event shaped juvenile quality and a trade-off between egg developmental time and female weight at hatching. Overall, these findings emphasise that the last reproductive event of a female entails both positive and negative effects on various life-history traits of the female herself and her clutch of juveniles. Moreover, our study stresses the importance of population idiosyncrasies on the expression and nature of such cohort-specific effects.

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Section: Electronic Supplementary Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The population determines whether and how life-history traits vary between reproductive events in an insect with maternal care

et al. 2016

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“…; Kölliker et al. ). Similarly, when offspring are produced in separate clutches, the parents must decide whether it is more effective to care for the current clutch or to desert that clutch and establish a new one (Olmstead and Wood ; Mas and Kölliker ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Major benefits of guarding behavior in subsocial bees: implications for social evolution

Mikát

Černá

Straka

2016

Ecology and Evolution

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Parental care is a behavior that increases the growth and survival of offspring, often at a cost to the parents' own survival and/or future reproduction. In this study, we focused on nest guarding, which is one of the most important types of extended parental care; we studied this behavior in two solitary bee species of the genus Ceratina with social ancestors. We performed the experiment of removing the laying female, who usually guards the nest after completing its provisioning, to test the effects of nest guarding on the offspring survival and nest fate. By dissecting natural nests, we found that Ceratina cucurbitina females always guarded their offspring until the offspring reached adulthood. In addition, the females of this species were able to crawl across the nest partitions and inspect the offspring in the brood cells. In contrast, several Ceratina chalybea females guarded their nests until the offspring reached adulthood, but others closed the nest entrance with a plug and deserted the nest. Nests with a low number of provisioned cells were more likely to be plugged and abandoned than nests with a higher number of cells. The female removal experiment had a significantly negative effect on offspring survival in both species. These nests frequently failed due to the attacks of natural enemies (e.g., ants, chalcidoid wasps, and other competing Ceratina bees). Increased offspring survival is the most important benefit of the guarding strategy. The abandonment of a potentially unsuccessful brood might constitute a benefit of the nest plugging behavior. The facultative nest desertion strategy is a derived behavior in the studied bees and constitutes an example of an evolutionary reduction in the extent of parental care.

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“…Organisms make trade‐offs between current and future reproduction (Williams, ; Stearns, ). In parental care, parents should optimise their investment in offspring (Coleman et al ., ; Fox & Czesak, ; Trumbo, ; Kölliker et al ., ; Seidelmann, ). Investment in current offspring is dependent on the parental quality (Molumby, ; Nager et al ., ; Rehan & Richards, ), environmental variables (Strohm & Linsenmair, ; Kim, ; Peterson & Roitberg, , ; Renauld et al ., ; Dew et al ., ; Seidelmann, ), and future breeding possibilities (Gross, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal investment in a bee species with facultative nest guarding and males heavier than females

Mikát

Benda

Straka

2019

Ecological Entomology

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1. Maternal investment can be influenced by several factors, especially maternal quality and possibilities for future reproduction. Mass provisioning Hymenoptera are an excellent group for measuring maternal investment because mothers distribute food sources to each brood cell for each offspring separately. Generally in aculeate Hymenoptera, larger females produce larger offspring and invest more in female offspring than in male offspring. 2. This study investigated patterns of maternal investment in Ceratina chalcites, which has an uncommon type of sexual size dimorphism in Hymenoptera: on average, males are heavier than females. It was found that larger females produce a significantly higher proportion of male offspring, as males are the costlier sex in this species. 3. Facultative nest guarding by females was observed. Females can guard offspring until adulthood, as is typical for bees of genus Ceratina (34.43% of nests); however, in the majority of cases (65.56% of nests), females plug and abandon the nest. Significant differences were found in the amount of investment between guarded and unguarded nests. Guarded nests had a greater number of provisioned brood cells and a higher proportion of male offspring. It is suggested that mothers have two facultative strategies – either she makes a large investment in the offspring of one nest or she abandons the first nest and carries out a second nesting elsewhere.

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Parent–offspring conflict and the genetic trade-offs shaping parental investment

Cited by 44 publications

References 37 publications

The population determines whether and how life-history traits vary between reproductive events in an insect with maternal care

The population determines whether and how life-history traits vary between reproductive events in an insect with maternal care

Major benefits of guarding behavior in subsocial bees: implications for social evolution

Maternal investment in a bee species with facultative nest guarding and males heavier than females

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