Population density, body size, and phenotypic plasticity of brood size in a burying beetle

Creighton, J. Curtis

doi:10.1093/beheco/ari084

Cited by 79 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…This finding is in contrast to studies in other species showing that mothers produce fewer but larger offspring at high densities (Both 2000;Creighton 2005;Goubault et al 2007;Plaistow et al 2007;Allen et al 2008;Leips et al 2009). Thus, there is mixed empirical evidence with respect to how females adjust the number versus the size of their offspring in response to intense levels of competition.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 94%

“…This result was somewhat surprising given that larval mass determines adult size, which in turn determines the likelihood of acquiring a carcass for breeding (Bartlett and Ashworth 1988;Safryn and Scott 2000;Lock et al 2004). Thus, we might have expected an adjustment in offspring size by females that had prior contest experience, due to an anticipatory maternal response to the intense levels of competition at high population density (Creighton 2005). Instead, we found that offspring size depended on the number of mice females had encountered.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…To illustrate this issue, we propose a conceptual model based on the simple assumption that variation in population density determines the intensity of intraspecific competition over resources used for breeding (Creighton 2005). When population density is low, there will be little competition over resources.…”

Section: Contest Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence for densitydependent adjustments in the number and/or size of offspring has been documented in a variety of taxa, including birds, fishes, insects, and aquatic invertebrates (Both 2000;Creighton 2005;Goubault et al 2007;Plaistow et al 2007;Allen et al 2008;Leips et al 2009;Rauter et al 2010). In most of these studies, parents produced fewer, larger offspring at high densities and more, smaller offspring at low densities.…”

Section: Contest Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Prior Contest Experience and Contest Outcome on Female Reproductive Decisions and Offspring Fitness

Pilakouta

Halford

Rácz

et al. 2016

The American Naturalist

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Dryad data: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fq22f.abstract: Winning or losing a prior contest can influence the outcome of future contests, but it might also alter subsequent reproductive decisions. For example, losers may increase their investment in the current breeding attempt if losing a contest indicates limited prospects for future breeding. Using the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, we tested whether females adjust their prehatching and posthatching reproductive effort after winning or losing a contest with a same-sex conspecific. Burying beetles breed on carcasses of small vertebrates for which there is fierce intrasexual competition. We found no evidence that winning or losing a contest influenced reproductive investment decisions in this species. Instead, we show that a female's prior contest experience (regardless of its outcome) influenced the amount of posthatching care provided, with downstream consequences for the female's reproductive output; both winners and losers spent more time provisioning food to their offspring and produced larger broods than females with no contest experience. We discuss the wider implications of our findings and present a conceptual model linking contestmediated adjustments in parental investment to population-level processes. We propose that the frequency of intraspecific contests could both influence and be influenced by population dynamics in species where contest experience influences the size and/or number of offspring produced.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 94%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Contest Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Contest Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Prior Contest Experience and Contest Outcome on Female Reproductive Decisions and Offspring Fitness

Pilakouta

Halford

Rácz

et al. 2016

The American Naturalist

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“…There is little doubt that the density of conspecifics can be an important determinant of growth and survival of offspring (Einum and Nislow 2005;Beckerman et al 2006;Plaistow et al 2007;Einum et al 2008), and that larger offspring generally fare better under competitive circumstances (Hutchings 1991;Einum and Fleming 1999;Beckerman et al 2006). In some taxa, mothers of all sizes may even adjust egg size and fecundity in anticipation of the offspring competitive environment (e.g., Creighton 2005;Leips et al 2009), while in other taxa, mothers do not (e.g., Plaistow et al 2007). To our knowledge, however, few experimental studies have been designed specifically to address whether the egg size-maternal size correlation is a form of maternal compensation for increased sibling competition, and none have lent support to this hypothesis (Lalonde 2005;Rollinson and Hutchings 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body size-specific maternal effects on the offspring environment shape juvenile phenotypes in Atlantic salmon

Rollinson

Hutchings

2011

Oecologia

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Positive associations between maternal investment per offspring and maternal body size have been explained as adaptive responses by females to predictable, body size-specific maternal influences on the offspring's environment. As a larger per-offspring investment increases maternal fitness when the quality of the offspring environment is low, optimal egg size may increase with maternal body size if larger mothers create relatively poor environments for their eggs or offspring. Here, we manipulate egg size and rearing environments (gravel size, nest depth) of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment. We find that the incubation environment typical of large and small mothers can exert predictable effects on offspring phenotypes, but the nature of these effects provides little support to the prediction that smaller eggs are better suited to nest environments created by smaller females (and vice versa). Our data indicate that the magnitude and direction of phenotypic differences between small and large offspring vary among maternal nest environments, underscoring the point that removal of offspring from the environmental context in which they are provisioned in the wild can bias experimentally derived associations between offspring size and metrics of offspring fitness. The present study also contributes to a growing literature which suggests that the fitness consequences of egg size variation are often more pronounced during the early juvenile stage, as opposed to the egg or larval stage.

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Behavioral constraints on local adaptation and counter‐gradient variation: Implications for climate change

Quinby

Belk

Creighton

2020

Ecology and Evolution

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Resource allocation to growth, reproduction, and body maintenance varies within species along latitudinal gradients. Two hypotheses explaining this variation are local adaptation and counter‐gradient variation. The local adaptation hypothesis proposes that populations are adapted to local environmental conditions and are therefore less adapted to environmental conditions at other locations. The counter‐gradient variation hypothesis proposes that one population out performs others across an environmental gradient because its source location has greater selective pressure than other locations. Our study had two goals. First, we tested the local adaptation and counter‐gradient variation hypotheses by measuring effects of environmental temperature on phenotypic expression of reproductive traits in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis Say, from three populations along a latitudinal gradient in a common garden experimental design. Second, we compared patterns of variation to evaluate whether traits covary or whether local adaptation of traits precludes adaptive responses by others. Across a latitudinal range, N. orbicollis exhibits variation in initiating reproduction and brood sizes. Consistent with local adaptation: (a) beetles were less likely to initiate breeding at extreme temperatures, especially when that temperature represents their source range; (b) once beetles initiate reproduction, source populations produce relatively larger broods at temperatures consistent with their local environment. Consistent with counter‐gradient variation, lower latitude populations were more successful at producing offspring at lower temperatures. We found no evidence for adaptive variation in other adult or offspring performance traits. This suite of traits does not appear to coevolve along the latitudinal gradient. Rather, response to selection to breed within a narrow temperature range may preclude selection on other traits. Our study highlights that N. orbicollis uses temperature as an environmental cue to determine whether to initiate reproduction, providing insight into how behavior is modified to avoid costly reproductive attempts. Furthermore, our results suggest a temperature constraint that shapes reproductive behavior.

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Population density, body size, and phenotypic plasticity of brood size in a burying beetle

Cited by 79 publications

References 44 publications

Effects of Prior Contest Experience and Contest Outcome on Female Reproductive Decisions and Offspring Fitness

Effects of Prior Contest Experience and Contest Outcome on Female Reproductive Decisions and Offspring Fitness

Body size-specific maternal effects on the offspring environment shape juvenile phenotypes in Atlantic salmon

Behavioral constraints on local adaptation and counter‐gradient variation: Implications for climate change

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