The quantitative genetics of sex differences in parenting

Walling, Craig A.; Stamper, Clare E.; Smiseth, Per T.; Moore, Allen J.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0803146105

Cited by 92 publications

(149 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…R. Soc. B 282: 20151617 parental care [20,24,25,36]. Interestingly, our findings also reveal that these effects can be acquired from the early social environment of the future parents (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…The expression of maternal care is generally known to reflect phenotypic and/or genetic traits of the caring mother, as well as maternally-inherited and paternally-inherited traits expressed by the tended juveniles, e.g. through maternal effects and epigenetic modifications [20,24,25]. We, therefore, conducted a full-factorial cross-breeding/cross-fostering experiment, in which we mated maternally-deprived and -tended females with maternally-deprived and -tended males, and cross-fostered the resulting eggs to a foster mother of the same or a different experimental group.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Short-term benefits, but transgenerational costs of maternal loss in an insect with facultative maternal care

et al. 2015

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A lack of parental care is generally assumed to entail substantial fitness costs for offspring that ultimately select for the maintenance of family life across generations. However, it is unknown whether these costs arise when parental care is facultative, thus questioning their fundamental importance in the early evolution of family life. Here, we investigated the short-term, long-term and transgenerational effects of maternal loss in the European earwig Forficula auricularia, an insect with facultative post-hatching maternal care. We showed that maternal loss did not influence the developmental time and survival rate of juveniles, but surprisingly yielded adults of larger body and forceps size, two traits associated with fitness benefits. In a cross-breeding/ cross-fostering experiment, we then demonstrated that maternal loss impaired the expression of maternal care in adult offspring. Interestingly, the resulting transgenerational costs were not only mediated by the early-life experience of tending mothers, but also by inherited, parent-of-origin-specific effects expressed in juveniles. Orphaned females abandoned their juveniles for longer and fed them less than maternally-tended females, while foster mothers defended juveniles of orphaned females less well than juveniles of maternally-tended females. Overall, these findings reveal the key importance of transgenerational effects in the early evolution of family life.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-term benefits, but transgenerational costs of maternal loss in an insect with facultative maternal care

et al. 2015

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“…In the wild, 85 per cent of burying beetle broods are cared for biparentally [18], so consistent direct female care would occur across generations. Under biparental conditions, there are marked gender-specific differences in the time parents allocate to different parental care behaviours, with females spending more time provisioning larvae (direct care) and males spending more time maintaining the carcass (indirect care) [13,19]. Multi-transgenerational effects may therefore provide selection pressures for the division of biparental care behaviours, seen across a wide range of taxa, from insects to humans.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transgenerational effects of parent and grandparent gender on offspring development in a biparental beetle species

Lock

2011

Biol. Lett.

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Parental effects on offspring life-history traits are common and increasingly well-studied. However, the extent to which these effects persist into offspring in subsequent generations has received less attention. In this experiment, maternal and paternal effects on offspring and grand-offspring were investigated in the biparental burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, using a split-family design. This allowed the separation of prenatal and postnatal transgenerational effects. Grandparent and parent gender were found to have a cumulative effect on offspring development and may provide a selection pressure on the division of parental investment in biparental species.

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“…Parental care is a complex social phenotype that integrates many behavioural pathways [1][2][3][4], which can be predicted based on behavioural precursors that must exist before parenting can evolve [1]. For example, parenting often evolves in species with pre-existing defence of mates and food resources [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of neuropeptide F in a transition to parental care

Cunningham¹,

VanDenHeuvel²,

Khana³

et al. 2016

Biol. Lett.

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The genetics of complex social behaviour can be dissected by examining the genetic influences of component pathways, which can be predicted based on expected evolutionary precursors. Here, we examine how gene expression in a pathway that influences the motivation to eat is altered during parental care that involves direct feeding of larvae. We examine the expression of neuropeptide F, and its receptor, in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, which feeds pre-digested carrion to its begging larvae. We found that the npf receptor was greatly reduced during active care. Our research provides evidence that feeding behaviour was a likely target during the evolution of parental care in N. vespilloides. Moreover, dissecting complex behaviours into ethologically distinct sub-behaviours is a productive way to begin to target the genetic mechanisms involved in the evolution of complex behaviours.

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The quantitative genetics of sex differences in parenting

Cited by 92 publications

References 42 publications

Short-term benefits, but transgenerational costs of maternal loss in an insect with facultative maternal care

Short-term benefits, but transgenerational costs of maternal loss in an insect with facultative maternal care

Transgenerational effects of parent and grandparent gender on offspring development in a biparental beetle species

The role of neuropeptide F in a transition to parental care

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