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Data from: Crop-associated virus infection in a native perennial grass: reduction in plant fitness and dynamic patterns of virus detection
To understand the eco-evolutionary significance of plant viruses in nature, we must (i) quantify the effects of infection on plant fitness and (ii) recognize that native plants are increasingly exposed to crop-associated viruses. Studies of perennials are particularly needed: most of our knowledge of plant-virus interactions is from annuals, yet long-lived species dominate landscapes. Here we used aster models for life-history analysis and longitudinal measures of plant virus status to evaluate multi-year consequences of crop virus infection in a native perennial. We used Barley yellow dwarf virus acquired from wheat to inoculate seedlings of Panicum virgatum L. (switchgrass), a North American prairie grass. We grew inoculated and mock-inoculated individuals of two ecotypes for 3 years in the field. We measured plant size, infection status and fitness components. Aster modelling provided integrated multi-year measures of fitness. Crop virus inoculation reduced multi-year native plant fitness by 30% over 2 years despite generally asymptomatic infection and evidence of resistance. This reduction was greater than predicted from individual fitness components or most size measures. Ecotypes differed in response, with the lowland ecotype experiencing higher apparent recovery from infection. Virus treatment in the upland ecotype delayed flowering phenology and reduced seed filling. Synthesis. Our use of field experimentation, surveys of plant infection status and aster modelling demonstrates a rigorous and broadly applicable approach for quantifying the effects of viruses and other microbes on multi-year plant fitness. We found that a crop virus had negative multi-year effects on native plant fitness even after infection was no longer detected. Viruses may have substantial effects on native vegetation with domestication of landscapes and agricultural expansion.
Data from: Collective dispersal leads to variance in fitness and maintains offspring size variation within marine populations
Variance in fitness is well known to influence the outcome of evolution but is rarely considered in the theory of marine reproductive strategies. In coastal environments, turbulent mesoscale eddies can collect larvae into 'packets' resulting in collective dispersal. Larvae in packets return to the coast or are lost offshore in groups, producing variance in fitness. Using a Markov process to calculate fixation probabilities for competing phenotypes, we examine the evolution of offspring size and spawning duration in species with benthic adults and pelagic offspring. The offspring size that provides mothers with the highest mean fitness also generates the greatest variance in fitness, but pairwise invasion plots show that bet-hedging strategies are not evolutionarily stable: maximizing expected fitness correctly predicts the unique evolutionarily stable strategy. Nonetheless, fixation can take a long time. We find that selection to increase spawning duration as a risk-avoidance strategy to reduce the negative impacts of stochastic recruitment success can allow multiple offspring sizes to coexist in a population for extended periods. This has two important consequences for offspring size: 1) coexistence occurs over a broader range of sizes and is longer when spawning duration is longer, because longer spawning durations reduce variation in fitness and increase the time to fixation, and 2) longer spawning durations can compensate for having a non-optimal size and even allow less optimal sizes to reach fixation. Collective dispersal and longer spawning durations could effectively maintain offspring size variation even in the absence of good and bad years or locations. Empirical comparisons of offspring size would, therefore, not always reflect environment-specific differences in the optimal size.
Data from: Head-to-head comparison of three experimental methods of quantifying competitive fitness in C. elegans
Organismal fitness is relevant in many contexts in biology. The most meaningful experimental measure of fitness is competitive fitness, when two or more entities (e.g., genotypes) are allowed to compete directly. In theory, competitive fitness is simple to measure: an experimental population is initiated with the different types in known proportions and allowed to evolve under experimental conditions to a predefined endpoint. In practice, there are several obstacles to obtaining robust estimates of competitive fitness in multicellular organisms, the most pervasive of which is simply the time it takes to count many individuals of different types from many replicate populations. Methods by which counting can be automated in high throughput are desirable, but for automated methods to be useful, the bias and technical variance associated with the method must be (a) known, and (b) sufficiently small relative to other sources of bias and variance to make the effort worthwhile. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is an important model organism, and the fitness effects of genotype and environmental conditions are often of interest. We report a comparison of three experimental methods of quantifying competitive fitness, in which wild-type strains are competed against GFP-marked competitors under standard laboratory conditions. Population samples were split into three replicates and counted (1) "by eye" from a saved image, (2) from the same image using CellProfiler image analysis software, and (3) with a large particle flow cytometer (a "worm sorter"). From 720 replicate samples, neither the frequency of wild-type worms nor the among-sample variance differed significantly between the three methods. CellProfiler and the worm sorter provide at least a tenfold increase in sample handling speed with little (if any) bias or increase in variance.
Data from: Seeing spots: quantifying mother-offspring similarity and assessing fitness consequences of coat pattern traits in a wild population of giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis)
Polymorphic phenotypes of mammalian coat coloration have been important to the study of genetics and evolution, but less is known about the inheritance and fitness consequences of individual variation in complex coat pattern traits such as spots and stripes. Giraffe coat markings are highly complex and variable and it has been hypothesized that variation in coat patterns most likely affects fitness by camouflaging neonates against visually hunting predators. We quantified complex coat pattern traits of wild Masai giraffes using image analysis software, determined the similarity of spot pattern traits between mother and offspring, and assessed whether variation in spot pattern traits was related to fitness as measured by juvenile survival. The methods we described could comprise a framework for objective quantification of complex mammal coat pattern traits based on photographic coat pattern data. We demonstrated that some characteristics of giraffe coat spot shape were likely to be heritable, as measured by mother-offspring regression. We found significant variation in juvenile survival among phenotypic groups of neonates defined by multivariate clustering based on spot trait measurement variables. We also found significant variation in neonatal survival associated with spot size and shape covariates. Larger spots (smaller number of spots) and irregularly shaped spots (smaller aspect ratio) were correlated with increased survival. These findings will inform investigations into developmental and genetic architecture of complex mammal coat patterns and their adaptive value.
Data from: An X-linked meiotic drive allele has strong, recessive fitness costs in female Drosophila pseudoobscura
<p>Selfish 'meiotic drive' alleles are transmitted to >50% of offspring, allowing them to rapidly invade populations even if they reduce the fitness of individuals carrying them. Theory predicts that drivers should either fix or go extinct, yet some drivers defy these predictions by persisting at low, stable frequencies for decades. One possible explanation for this discrepancy is that drivers are especially costly when homozygous, although empirical tests of this idea are rare and equivocal. Here, we measure the fitness of female Drosophila pseudoobscura carrying zero, one, or two copies of the X-linked driver Sex-Ratio (SR). SR had strong negative effects on female offspring production and the probability of reproductive failure, and these effects were largely similar across four genetic backgrounds. SR was especially costly when homozygous. We used our fitness measurements to parameterise a population genetic model, and found that the female fitness costs observed here can explain the puzzlingly low allele frequency of SR in nature. We also use the model to show how spatial variation in female mating behaviour, fitness costs of SR, and the reduced siring success of SR males can jointly explain the North-South cline in SR frequencies across North America.</p>
Data from: Lifetime fitness and age-related female ornament signalling: evidence for survival and fecundity selection in the pied flycatcher
Ornaments displayed by females have often been denied evolutionary interest due to their frequently reduced expression relative to males, habitually attributed to a genetic correlation between the sexes. We estimated annual and lifetime reproductive success of female pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) and applied capture–mark–recapture models to analyse annual survival rates in relation to the patterns of expression (absence/presence) of an ornament displayed by all males and a fraction of females. Overall, the likelihood of expressing the ornament increased nonlinearly with female age and was due to within-individual variation, not to the selective appearance or disappearance of ornament-related expression of phenotypes in the population. Accordingly, expressing the forehead patch in a given year did not influence survival probability. However, those females expressing the ornament at early ages (1–2 years old) enjoyed survival advantages throughout lifetime. Although ornamented females had higher lifetime fecundity and fledging success, their yearly reproductive performance, in terms of fledging productivity, decreased as they aged so that, late in life, ornamented females reared fewer offspring than nonexpressing females of the same age. In addition, both strategies (expressing vs. not expressing the trait) returned similar fitness payoffs in terms of recruited offspring. Our results support the hypothesis that fecundity and survival selection are involved in the displaying of this 'male' ornament by females.
Data from: Spatio-temporal variation in fitness responses to contrasting environments in Arabidopsis thaliana
The evolutionary response of organisms to global climate change is expected to be strongly conditioned by pre-existing standing genetic variation. In addition, natural selection imposed by global climate change on fitness-related traits can be heterogeneous over time. We estimated selection of life-history traits of an entire genetic lineage of the plant A. thaliana occurring in north-western Iberian Peninsula that were transplanted over multiple years into two environmentally contrasting field sites in southern Spain, as southern environments are expected to move progressively northwards with climate change in the Iberian Peninsula. The results indicated that natural selection on flowering time prevailed over that on recruitment. Selection favored early flowering in six of eight experiments and late flowering in the other two. Such heterogeneity of selection for flowering time might be a powerful mechanism for maintaining genetic diversity in the long run. We also found that north-western A. thaliana accessions from warmer environments exhibited higher fitness and higher phenotypic plasticity for flowering time in southern experimental facilities. Overall, our transplant experiments suggested that north-western Iberian A. thaliana has the means to cope with increasingly warmer environments in the region as predicted by trends in global climate change models.
Data from: Spore germination determines yeast inbreeding according to fitness in the local environment
Gene combinations conferring local fitness may be destroyed by mating with individuals that are adapted to a different environment. This form of outbreeding depression provides an evolutionary incentive for self-fertilization. We show that the yeast Saccharomyces paradoxus tends to self-fertilize when it is well adapted to its local environment but tends to outcross when it is poorly adapted. This behavior could preserve combinations of genes when they are beneficial and break them up when they are not, thereby helping adaptation. Haploid spores must germinate before mating, and we found that fitter spores had higher rates of germination across a 24-hour period, increasing the probability that they mate with germinated spores from the same meiotic tetrad. The ability of yeast spores to detect local conditions before germinating and mating suggests the novel possibility that these gametes directly sense their own adaptation and plastically adjust their breeding strategy accordingly.
Data from: Inclusive fitness benefits mitigate costs of cuckoldry to socially paired males
Background: In socially monogamous species, reproduction is not always confined to paired males and females. Extra-pair males commonly also reproduce with paired females, which is traditionally thought to be costly to the females' social partners. However, we suggest that when the relatedness between reproducing individuals is considered, cuckolded males can suffer lower fitness losses than otherwise expected, especially when the rate of cuckoldry is high. We combine theoretical modeling with a detailed genetic study on a socially monogamous wild fish, Variabilichromis moorii, which displays biparental care despite exceptionally high rates of extra-pair paternity. Results: We measured the relatedness between all parties involved in V. moorii spawning events (i.e. between males and females in social pairs, females and their extra-pair partners, and paired males and their cuckolders), and we reveal that males are on average more related to their cuckolders than expected by chance. Queller–Goodnight estimates of relatedness between males and their cuckolders are on average r = 0.038 but can range up to r = 0.64. This also increases the relatedness between males and the extra-pair offspring under their care. These intriguing results are consistent with the predictions of our mathematical model, which shows that elevated relatedness between paired males and their cuckolders can be adaptive for both parties when competition for fertilizations is strong. Conclusions: Our results show how cuckoldry by relatives can offset males' direct fitness losses with inclusive fitness gains, which can be substantial in systems where males face almost certain paternity losses.
Data from: Hotspot mutations and ColE1 plasmids contribute to the fitness of Salmonella Heidelberg in poultry litter
Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Heidelberg (S. Heidelberg) is a clinically-important serovar linked to food-borne illness, and commonly isolated from poultry. Investigations of a large, multistate outbreak in the USA in 2013 identified poultry litter (PL) as an important extra-intestinal environment that may have selected for specific S. Heidelberg strains. Poultry litter is a mixture of bedding materials and chicken excreta that contains chicken gastrointestinal (GI) bacteria, undigested feed, feathers, and other materials of chicken origin. In this study, we performed a series of controlled laboratory experiments which assessed the microevolution of two S. Heidelberg strains (SH-2813 and SH-116) in PL previously used to raise 3 flocks of broiler chickens. The strains are closely related at the chromosome level, differing from the reference genome by 109 and 89 single nucleotide polymorphisms/InDels, respectively. Whole genome sequencing was performed on 86 isolates recovered after 0, 1, 7 and 14 days of microevolution in PL. Only strains carrying an IncX1 (37kb), 2 ColE1 (4 and 6kb) and 1 ColpVC (2kb) plasmids survived more than 7 days in PL. Competition experiments showed that carriage of these plasmids was associated with increased fitness. This increased fitness was associated with an increased copy number of IncX1 and ColE1 plasmids. Further, all Col plasmid-bearing strains had hotspot mutations in 37 loci on the chromosome and in 3 loci on the IncX1 plasmid. Additionally, we observed a decrease in susceptibility to tobramycin, kanamycin, gentamicin, neomycin and fosfomycin for Col plasmid-bearing strains. Our study demonstrates how positive selection from poultry litter can change the evolutionary path of S. Heidelberg.
Early life learning ability predicts adult social structure, with potential implications for fitness outcomes in the wild
1. Social environments influence important ecological processes and can determine how selection acts on traits. Cognitive abilities can shape these social environments and in turn, affect individuals' fitness. 2. To understand how cognitive abilities evolve, we need to understand the complex interplay between an individual's cognitive abilities, the social environment that they inhabit and the fitness consequences of these relationships. 3. We measured the associative learning ability of pheasant chicks, Phasianus colchicus, then released them into the wild where we quantified their social position by observing their associations at feeding stations and monitored the number of days survived. 4. We observed disassortative mixing by learning performance at the population level, and poor learners had more associates than good learners. Learning was beneficial for survival when focal individuals had fewer than four associates, but survival probability across learning abilities equalized for individuals with more than four associates. 5. While the mechanisms underlying these relationships remain to be determined, the patterns of association exhibited by pheasants at feeders can be predicted by individual variation in cognitive performances and we suspect these patterns are related to differences in information use. Critically, these resulting patterns of association have fitness consequences for individuals that cannot be explained directly by their cognitive ability, but which could mediate selection on cognition.
Data from: Offspring fitness and the optimal propagule size in a fluctuating environment
Propagule size is an important maternal effect on offspring fitness and phenotype in birds and other oviparous animals. The performance of propagules often increases with size, but a fluctuating environment may introduce temporal variation in the optimal phenotype. Understanding these mechanisms will provide novel insights into the eco-evolutionary dynamics of life history strategies in parental reproductive investment. We investigated the interaction between propagule size (measured as egg volume) and environmental conditions on offspring mortality and phenotype in a Norwegian house sparrow population. Increased propagule size reduced offspring mortality in early life, with more pronounced effects under heavy precipitation. However, the optimal propagule size for low offspring mortality until recruitment shifted from large to small as temperature increased. Propagule size had no significant effect on fledgling body mass and tarsus length. These results reveal a potential for eco-evolutionary dynamics in propagule size, as populations adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions. The ultimate outcome of this dynamic process will also depend on variation in parental fitness and trade-offs with other life-history traits, particularly clutch size.
Data from: Offspring fitness varies with parental extra-pair status in song sparrows, Melospiza melodia
Numerous studies have tested for indirect selection on female extra-pair reproduction (EPR) by quantifying whether extra-pair young (EPY) are fitter than their within-pair young (WPY) maternal half-siblings. In contrast, the hypothesis that offspring of EPY and WPY (rather than the EPY and WPY themselves) differ in fitness has not been tested, even though inter-generational effects of parental extra-pair status on offspring fitness could alter the magnitude and direction of indirect selection on EPR. We tested whether offspring of EPY song sparrows, Melospiza melodia, were more likely to recruit or produce hatched or recruited offspring over their lifetimes than offspring of WPY. Hatchlings with one or two EPY parents were more likely to recruit and produce hatched offspring than hatchlings with two WPY parents. Furthermore, these relationships differed between maternal versus paternal extra-pair status. Hatchlings with EPY fathers were more likely to recruit and produce offspring than hatchlings with WPY fathers. In contrast, hatchlings with EPY mothers were as likely to recruit as hatchlings with WPY mothers and tended to be less likely to produce recruited offspring. Depending on the causal genetic and environmental mechanisms, such conflicting inter-generational relationships between parental extra-pair status and offspring fitness could substantially influence the evolutionary dynamics of EPR.
Data from: Fitness differences between parapatric lake and stream stickleback revealed by a field transplant
Molecular comparisons of populations diverging into ecologically different environments often reveal strong differentiation in localized genomic regions, with the remainder of the genome being weakly differentiated. This pattern of heterogeneous genomic divergence, however, is rarely connected to direct measurements of fitness differences among populations. We here do so by performing a field enclosure experiment in threespine stickleback fish residing in a lake and in three replicate adjoining streams, and displaying weak yet heterogeneous genomic divergence between these habitats. Tracking survival over 29 weeks, we consistently find that lake genotypes transplanted into the streams suffer greatly reduced viability relative to local stream genotypes and that the performance of F1 hybrid genotypes is intermediate. This observed selection against migrants and hybrids combines to a total reduction in gene flow from the lake into streams of around 80%. Overall, our study identifies a strong reproductive barrier between parapatric stickleback populations, and cautions against inferring weak fitness differences between populations exhibiting weak overall genomic differentiation.
Data from: Sex-specific fitness effects of unpredictable early life conditions are associated with DNA methylation in the avian glucocorticoid receptor
Organisms can adapt to variable environments by using environmental cues to modulate developmental gene expression. In principle, maternal influences can adaptively adjust offspring phenotype when early life and adult environments match, but they may be maladaptive when future environments are not predictable. One of the best-studied 'maternal effects' is through modification of the offspring's hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, the neuroendocrine system that controls responses to stress. In addition to the direct transfer of glucocorticoids from mother to offspring, offspring HPA function and other phenotypes can also be affected by epigenetic modifications like DNA methylation of the glucocorticoid receptor promoter. Here we examine how among-year variation in rainfall is related to DNA methylation during development and fitness in adulthood in the superb starling (Lamprotornis superbus), which lives in a climatically unpredictable environment where early life and adult environments are unlikely to match. We found that DNA methylation in the putative promoter of the glucocorticoid receptor gene is reduced in chicks – particularly in males – born following drier prebreeding periods. Additionally, DNA methylation is lower in males that become breeders than those that never breed. However, there is no relationship in females between DNA methylation and the likelihood of dispersing from the natal group to breed elsewhere. These results suggest that early life conditions may positively affect fitness in a sex-specific manner through chemical modification of an HPA-associated gene. This study is the first to show that epigenetic modifications during early life may influence the fitness of free-living organisms adapted to unpredictable environments.
Data from: Relating fitness to long-term environmental variations in natura
Quantifying links between ecological processes and adaptation dynamics in natura remains a crucial challenge. Many studies have documented the strength, form and direction of selection, and its variations in space and time, but only a few managed to link these variations to their proximal causes. This step is, however, crucial, if we are to understand how the variation in selective pressure affects adaptive allele dynamics in natural settings. We used data from a long-term survey (about 30 years) monitoring the adaptation to insecticides of Culex pipiens mosquitoes in Montpellier area (France), focusing on three resistance alleles of the Ester locus. We used a population genetics model taking temporal and spatial variations in selective pressure into account, to assess the quantitative relationships between variations in the proximal agent of selection (amounts of insecticide sprayed) and the fitness of resistance alleles. The response to variations in selective pressure was fast, and the alleles displayed different fitness-to-environment relationships: the analyses revealed that even slight changes in insecticide doses could induce changes in the strength and direction of selection, thus changing the fitness ranking of the adaptive alleles. They also revealed that selective pressures other than the insecticides used for mosquito control affected the resistance allele dynamics. These fitness-to-environment relationships, fast responses and continuous evolution limit our ability to predict the outcome of adaptive allele dynamics in a changing environment, but they clearly contribute to the maintenance of polymorphism in natural populations. Our study also emphasizes the necessity of long-term surveys in evolutionary ecology.
Data from: Sensitivity of the farmland bird community to crop diversification in Sweden: does the CAP fit?
Crop diversification has been introduced as an environmental strategy in the 'Greening' of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2015–2020. The primary target of crop diversification is soil and ecosystem resilience, but claims for potential benefits for farmland biodiversity are also common. However, understanding of relationships between the number (compositional heterogeneity) and spatial arrangement (configurational heterogeneity) of crop fields and biodiversity is generally poor, making such claims relatively unfounded. In this study, we monitored crop and farmland bird diversity on 178 farms across Sweden's main agricultural areas. From a pre-implementation assessment, we show that >97% of the assessed farms would not be required to change their management under the CAP crop diversification measure (minimum of three crops for farms with 30+ ha), suggesting that this measure has generated little change on Swedish farms. While accounting for non-crop elements and farming system (conventional or organic), we show that crop structural diversity (i.e. the management and vegetation structure of crops) rather than crop diversity senso lato positively affected richness of non-crop breeding bird species with stronger effects in arable, compared with forest-dominated landscapes. No such effects were observed among field-nesting farmland bird species. Organic farming had little influence on farmland birds with positive effects only in the most arable-dominated landscapes and for field-nesting species only. In forest-dominated landscapes, organic farms even held lower field-nester densities compared with conventional farms, possibly due to the dominance of grasslands on organic farms that in these landscapes support lower densities of field-nesting species compared with cereals. Policy implications. Our study illustrates the importance of a consideration of structural instead of species diversity of crops for biodiversity, in this case farmland birds. We also underline the absence of such a distinction in current EU Common Agricultural Policy Greening, while simultaneously setting levels on crop diversification too low resulting in little to no change in landscape-scale crop diversity on Swedish farmland. We recommend that future efforts to manage farmland biodiversity should include ways of increasing the structural diversity of crops at the scale of farms and landscapes.
Data from: The nature of nurture in a wild mammal's fitness
Genetic variation in fitness is required for the adaptive evolution of any trait but natural selection is thought to erode genetic variance in fitness. This paradox has motivated the search for mechanisms that might maintain a population's adaptive potential. Mothers make many contributions to the attributes of their developing offspring and these maternal effects can influence responses to natural selection if maternal effects are themselves heritable. Maternal genetic effects (MGEs) on fitness might, therefore, represent an underappreciated source of adaptive potential in wild populations. Here we used two decades of data from a pedigreed wild population of North American red squirrels to show that MGEs on offspring fitness increased the population's evolvability by over two orders of magnitude relative to expectations from direct genetic effects alone. MGEs are predicted to maintain more variation than direct genetic effects in the face of selection, but we also found evidence of maternal effect trade-offs. Mothers that raised high-fitness offspring in one environment raised low-fitness offspring in another environment. Such a fitness trade-off is expected to maintain maternal genetic variation in fitness, which provided additional capacity for adaptive evolution beyond that provided by direct genetic effects on fitness.
Autosomal suppression and fitness costs of an old driving X chromosome in Drosophila testacea
<p>Driving X chromosomes (X<sup>D</sup>s) are meiotic drivers that bias their own transmission through males by killing Y-bearing gametes. These chromosomes can in theory spread rapidly in populations and cause extinction, but many are found as balanced polymorphisms or as "cryptic" X<sup>D</sup>s shut down by drive suppressors. The relative likelihood of these outcomes, as well as the evolutionary pathways through which they come about, are not well-understood. An X<sup>D</sup> was recently discovered in the mycophagous fly, <em>Drosophila testacea</em>, presenting the opportunity to compare this X<sup>D</sup> with the well-studied X<sup>D</sup> of its sister species, <em>Drosophila neotestacea</em>. Comparing features of independently evolved X<sup>D</sup>s in young sister species is a promising avenue towards understanding how X<sup>D</sup>s and their counter acting forces change over time. In contrast to the X<sup>D</sup> of <em>D. neotestacea</em>, we find that the X<sup>D</sup> of <em>D. testacea</em> is old, with its origin predating the radiation of three species: <em>D. testacea</em>, <em>D. neotestacea</em>, and their shared sister species, <em>Drosophila orientacea</em>. Motivated by the suggestion that older X<sup>D</sup>s should be more deleterious to carriers, we assessed the effect of the X<sup>D</sup> on both male and female fertility. Unlike what is known from <em>D. neotestacea</em>, we found a strong fitness cost in females homozygous for the X<sup>D</sup> in <em>D. testacea</em>: a large proportion of homozygous females failed to produce offspring after being housed with males for several days. Our male fertility experiments show that while X<sup>D</sup> male fertility is lower under sperm depleting conditions, X<sup>D</sup> males have comparable fertility to males carrying a standard X chromosome under a free mating regime, which may better approximate conditions in wild populations of <em>D. testacea</em>. Lastly, we demonstrate the presence of autosomal suppression of X chromosome drive. Our results provide support for a model of X<sup>D</sup> evolution where the dynamics of young X<sup>D</sup>s are governed by fitness consequences in males, whereas in older X<sup>D</sup> systems, both suppression and fitness consequences in females likely supersede male fitness costs.</p>
Data from: Biparental care is more than the sum of its parts: experimental evidence for synergistic effects on offspring fitness
Despite an extensive body of theoretical and empirical literature on biparental cooperation, it is still unclear whether offspring fare equally, better, or worse when receiving care by two parents versus a single parent. Some models predict that parents should withhold the amount of care they provide due to sexual conflict, thereby shifting as much of the workload as possible to their partner. This conflict should lead to offspring faring worse with two parents. Yet, other models predict that when parents care for their offspring together, their individual contributions can have synergistic (more than additive) effects on offspring fitness. Under this scenario, biparental cooperation should lead to offspring faring better with two parents. We address this fundamental question using a unique experimental design where we compared offspring fitness when the two parents worked together (biparental treatment) and when the two parents worked separately (uniparental treatment), while keeping constant the amount of resources and number of offspring per parent across treatments. This made it possible to directly compare the biparental treatment to the sum of the male and female contributions in the uniparental treatment. Our main finding was that offspring grew larger and were more likely to survive to adulthood when reared by both parents than a single parent. This is the first empirical evidence for a synergistic effect of biparental cooperation on offspring fitness and could provide novel insights into the conditions favouring the evolution of biparental cooperation.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.