Paternal Care and Sexual Selection in Arthropods

Requena, Gustavo S.; Munguía‐Steyer, Roberto; Machado, Glauco

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-416028-6.00008-6

Cited by 29 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…The trade-off between parental and mating effort in particular is a topic that has received much attention by researchers (e.g., Trivers 1972;Magrath and Komdeur 2003;Houston et al 2005;Stiver and Alonzo 2009;Requena et al 2013). The trade-off between parental and mating effort in particular is a topic that has received much attention by researchers (e.g., Trivers 1972;Magrath and Komdeur 2003;Houston et al 2005;Stiver and Alonzo 2009;Requena et al 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A common assumption in the study of the evolution of parental care is that the allocation of time and energy to parental duties reduces the energy and time available for self-maintenance or matings and hence for future reproduction (Alonso-Alvarez and Velando 2012). The trade-off between parental and mating effort in particular is a topic that has received much attention by researchers (e.g., Trivers 1972;Magrath and Komdeur 2003;Houston et al 2005;Stiver and Alonzo 2009;Requena et al 2013). Individuals that invest highly in courtship or other forms of sexual displays might simply have a reduced energetic capacity to invest in parental care.…”

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Staying with the young enhances the fathers’ attractiveness in burying beetles

et al. 2017

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Studying the relationship between parental and mating effort helps us to understand the evolution of parental care and, consequently, has been the subject of many theoretical and empirical investigations. Using burying beetles as a model, we found no correlation between the intensity of a sexual signal (sex pheromone quantity) and the amount of care provided by males. However, males that were given the opportunity to breed and care for young went on to produce a higher amount of their sexual signal and attracted three times more females in the field than control males that were not given the opportunity to breed. The likely explanation for our finding is that specific aspects of care in burying beetles, that is the defense and preservation of a nutrient rich breeding resource, a small vertebrate cadaver, is not only beneficial for the offspring but also for the adults themselves. Obtaining a good carrion meal possibly enables males to store resources that they can subsequently allocate toward sexual signaling. Collectively, our results highlight that conditions can exist where male participation in brood care has a positive effect on its sexual attractiveness. This in turn might have facilitated the evolution of male assistance in parental care.

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Staying with the young enhances the fathers’ attractiveness in burying beetles

et al. 2017

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“…Individuals of all species mentioned above lay eggs on the vegetation and parents (either males or females) periodically abandon their clutches to shelter or to forage (reviewed in Requena et al. ; Fig. ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple Lines of Egg Defense in a Neotropical Arachnid with Temporary Brood Desertion

Chelini

Machado

2014

Ethology

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Egg predation is the one of the main costs of brood desertion in many ectothermic animals. When stressful environmental conditions constrain parental activities to only some periods of the day, the combination of physical or chemical defenses may attenuate the costs related to egg loss during periods of temporary parental absence. Females of the harvestman Neosadocus maximus periodically abandon their clutches to shelter or forage. They also cover their eggs with a hygroscopic mucus coat and seem to lose fewer eggs to predation than other syntopic harvestmen whose eggs lack the mucus coat. Using two species of N. maximus egg predators, we demonstrate that eggs whose mucus coat was experimentally removed suffered higher predation rate than eggs whose mucus coat was left intact. We argue that this mucus provides physical protection against egg predators, especially small arthropods. A similar mucus coat has independently evolved in other two clades of Neotropical harvestman in which males care for the eggs and typically leave their clutches unattended for several hours a day. We propose that the presence of multiple lines of egg defense may have evolved as a way of lowering the costs imposed by intra-and interspecific egg predation during periods of temporary brood desertion.

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“…Therefore, additional lines of defence (e.g. In arthropods, exclusive paternal care is rare; however, it has been observed in studies of 15 phylogenetically independent taxa (Requena et al, 2013). In Hemiptera, female parents of Elasmucha species sometimes release perceptible chemical substances to defend their offspring (Kudo, 1990;Tachikawa, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Comparisons among species and between maternal or paternal care will deepen our understanding of the functions of parental care. In arthropods, exclusive paternal care is rare; however, it has been observed in studies of 15 phylogenetically independent taxa (Requena et al, 2013). Giant water bugs (Hemiptera: Belostomatidae), which are large predators of aquatic vertebrates and invertebrates, are known to display paternal care (Smith, 1997) and represent classic examples of paternal care among arthropods.…”

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confidence: 99%

Paternal care behaviour of the giant water bug Kirkaldyia deyrolli (Heteroptera: Belostomatidae) against ants

Ohba

Maeda

2017

Ecological Entomology

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1. Although potentially vulnerable to predators, the offspring of subsocial insects are effectively protected by their parent(s). The female giant water bug Kirkaldyia deyrolli lays its egg masses on the vegetation above the water surface in aquatic environments and the males supply the eggs with water and guard them against cannibalistic females until hatchling dispersal. Field observations showed that egg masses are attacked by ants if the attending males are not present.2. Laboratory experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of paternal care by K. deyrolli against the ant Tetramorium tsushimae by means of four treatments: attending male with ant approach (WM-WA); no attending male with ant approach (NoM-WA); attending male without ant approach (WM-NoA); and no attending male without ant approach (NoM-NoA).3. The rate of offspring survival was lower in the NoM-WA group (45.3%) than in any other group, which showed similar offspring survival (WM-WA = 80.4%, WM-NoA = 75.1%, NoM-NoA = 80.3%). Moreover, there were a total of 44 interactions between the attending male and ants in WM-WA, and of these, a chemical compound was released by the attending male four times; this probably deterred ants from attacking because the ants went back to their colony.4. In conclusion, the attending male can protect its eggs from ant predators and its care has an important role. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of Lethocerinae males protecting their egg masses from ants by means of physical and chemical defence.

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Paternal Care and Sexual Selection in Arthropods

Cited by 29 publications

References 77 publications

Staying with the young enhances the fathers’ attractiveness in burying beetles

Staying with the young enhances the fathers’ attractiveness in burying beetles

Multiple Lines of Egg Defense in a Neotropical Arachnid with Temporary Brood Desertion

Paternal care behaviour of the giant water bug Kirkaldyia deyrolli (Heteroptera: Belostomatidae) against ants

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