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180 results for “Maternal care”
Data from: Linking genetic merit to sparse behavioral data: does behavior explain genetic variation for maternal care in Soay sheep?
Wild quantitative genetic studies have focused on a subset of traits (largely morphological and life-history), with others, such as behaviors, receiving much less attention. This is because it is challenging to obtain sufficient data, particularly for behaviors involving interactions between individuals. Here, we explore an indirect approach for pilot investigations of the role of genetic differences in generating variation in parental care. Variation in parental genetic effects for offspring performance is expected to arise from among-parent genetic variation in parental care. Therefore, we used the animal model to predict maternal breeding values for lamb growth and used these predictions to select females for field observation, where maternal and lamb behaviors were recorded. Higher predicted maternal breeding value for lamb growth was associated with greater suckling success, but not with any other measures of suckling behavior. Though our work cannot explicitly estimate the genetic basis of the specific traits involved, it does provide a strategy for hypothesis generation and refinement, that we hope could be used to justify data collection costs needed for confirmatory studies. Here results suggest that behavioral genetic variation is involved in generating maternal genetic effects on lamb growth in Soay sheep. Though important caveats and cautions apply, our approach may extend the ability to initiate more genetic investigations of difficult-to-study behaviours and social interactions in natural populations.
Data from: Are species differences in maternal effects arising from maternal care adaptive?
Parental care benefits offspring through maternal effects influencing their development, growth and survival. However, although parental care in general is likely the result of adaptive evolution, it does not follow that specific differences in the maternal effects that arise from care are also adaptive. Here, we used an interspecific cross-fostering design in the burying beetle species Nicrophorus orbicollis and N. vespilloides, both of which have elaborate parental care involving direct feeding of regurgitated food to offspring, to test whether maternal effects are optimized within a species and therefore adaptive. Using a full-factorial design, we first demonstrated that N. orbicollis care for offspring longer regardless of recipient species. We then examined offspring development and mass in offspring reared by hetero- or conspecific parents. As expected, there were species-specific direct effects independent of the maternal effects, as N. orbicollis larvae were larger and took longer to develop than N. vespilloides regardless of caregiver. We also found significant differences in maternal effects: N. vespilloides maternal care caused more rapid development of offspring of either species. Contrary to expectations if maternal effects were species-specific, there were no significant interactions between caretaker and recipient species for either development time or mass, suggesting that these maternal effects are general rather than optimized within species. We suggest that rather than coadaptation between parents and offspring performance, the species differences in maternal effects may be correlated with direct effects, and that their evolution is driven by selection on those direct effects.
Data from: Female Soay sheep do not adjust their maternal care behaviour to the quality of their home range
Resource availability, through its impact on the costs and benefits of parental care, is expected to influence parental care behaviour. There has, to our knowledge, been no attempt to understand how variation in the resource use of wild individuals influences individual parental care behaviour. To understand how natural resource variability affects maternal care in female St. Kilda Soay sheep, we selected 69 females whose home ranges varied in quality (measured as the mean percentage cover of Holcus lanatus), and recorded the behaviour of each individual and her lamb over the period of maternal care. Home range quality did not influence suckling or non-suckling behaviours of the female or her lamb, suggesting that maternal care did not vary with a female's access to resources. Growth rate analyses confirmed the behavioural results, with no association between home range quality and the weight gain of lambs between birth and weaning. This work suggests that female Soay sheep faced with poorer resources do not favour their own future success over that of their lamb, and thereby do not exhibit a conservative reproductive strategy. This may be because when resource levels are high during the summer, females are able to offset the costs of lactation by consuming additional resources, regardless of the location of their home range. Our results suggest that more studies characterizing the environment experienced by individual animals will be necessary to fully understand how individuals alter their behaviour in response to temporal and spatial variation in the environment.
Data from: Age, pathogen exposure, but not maternal care shape offspring immunity in an insect with facultative family life
Background: To optimize their resistance against pathogen infection, individuals are expected to find the right balance between investing into the immune system and other life history traits. In vertebrates, several factors were shown to critically affect the direction of this balance, such as the developmental stage of an individual, its current risk of infection and/or its access to external help such as parental care. However, the independent and/or interactive effects of these factors on immunity remain poorly studied in insects. Results: Here, we manipulated maternal presence and pathogen exposure in families of the European earwig Forficula auricularia to measure whether and how the survival rate and investment into two key immune parameters changed during offspring development. The pathogen was the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum and the immune parameters were hemocyte concentration and phenol/pro-phenoloxidase enzyme activity (total-PO). Our results surprisingly showed that maternal presence had no effect on offspring immunity, but reduced offspring survival. Pathogen exposure also lowered the survival of offspring during their early development. The concentration of hemocytes and the total-PO activity increased during development, to be eventually higher in adult females compared to adult males. Finally, pathogen exposure overall increased the concentration of hemocytes—but not the total-PO activity—in adults, while it had no effect on these measures in offspring. Conclusions: Our results show that, independent of their infection risk and developmental stage, maternal presence does not shape immune defense in young earwigs. This reveals that pathogen pressure is not a universal evolutionary driver of the emergence and maintenance of post-hatching maternal care in insects.
FIGURE 4 in A new species of Colostethus (Anura: Dendrobatidae) with maternal care from Kaieteur National Park, Guyana
FIGURE 4. Colostethus kaiei, new species, holotype in life. Photograph by P. J. R. Kok.
Figs. 16–17 in First Report Of Immatures, Genitalia And Maternal Care In Eugenysa Columbiana (Boheman) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Eugenysini)
Figs. 16–17. Pupa of E. columbiana. 16) Dorsal view; 17) Ventral view.
Fig. 5 in First Report Of Immatures, Genitalia And Maternal Care In Eugenysa Columbiana (Boheman) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Eugenysini)
Fig. 5. Spermathecal system of E. columbiana.
Fig. 4 in First Report Of Immatures, Genitalia And Maternal Care In Eugenysa Columbiana (Boheman) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Eugenysini)
Fig. 4. Photograph of spermatheca of E. columbiana (spermathecal muscle removed by KOH).
Fig. 2 in First Report Of Immatures, Genitalia And Maternal Care In Eugenysa Columbiana (Boheman) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Eugenysini)
Fig. 2. Adult of E. columbiana attending pupal group on Mikania sp. in Costa Rica.
Figs. 14–15 in First Report Of Immatures, Genitalia And Maternal Care In Eugenysa Columbiana (Boheman) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Eugenysini)
Figs. 14–15. Larva of E. columbiana. 14) 4th instar; 15) Exuviofecal shield.
Fig. 3 in First Report Of Immatures, Genitalia And Maternal Care In Eugenysa Columbiana (Boheman) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Eugenysini)
Fig. 3. Photograph of aedeagal system of E. columbiana.
Data from: Reproduction and maternal care increases oxidative stress in a mouthbrooding cichlid fish
Investment in reproduction and post-zygotic parental care is an energetically costly, yet fundamental aspect of the life history strategies in many species. Recently, oxidative stress has received attention as a potential mediator in the trade-off between reproduction, growth and survival. During activities that increase metabolic activity, such as providing offspring care, an overproduction of reactive oxygen species can occur that cannot be counteracted by antioxidants, leading to oxidative stress and tissue damage. Here, we investigated the oxidative costs of reproduction and maternal care over the course of the reproductive cycle in a mouthbrooding cichlid fish within socially stable and unstable environments. We manipulated social stability by disrupting the habitat in socially unstable tanks. We expected to see an increase in the burden of maternal care within unstable environments due to increased male harassment of females as a byproduct of increased male-male aggression. We found that brooding females have higher levels of oxidative stress than non-brooding females and oxidative stress fluctuates throughout the reproductive cycle. These fluctuations were driven by a spike in reactive oxygen metabolites at the beginning of brood care followed by an increase in antioxidant defense. Surprisingly, the link between reproduction and oxidative stress was not different between females from stable or unstable environments. Our study illustrates a more complete picture of the physiological costs of reproduction and parental care throughout different stages of care rather than a simplistic end-point observation of how reproduction and parental care affect an individual.
Impact of Implementing the Midwifery Model of Care on Maternal and Neonatal Health Outcomes in Ethiopia
ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT06854705. IPD Sharing: Not stated. Countries: 0. Publications: 1.
Increasing Women's Access to Skilled Pregnancy Care to Reduce Maternal Mortality in Nigeria
ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT02643953. IPD Sharing: UNDECIDED. Countries: 0. Publications: 21.
Thriving Hearts: Healing-Centered, Integrated, Community Maternity Care
ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT06744231. IPD Sharing: YES. Countries: 1. Publications: 0.
Admission to Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) Ward and Maternal Postpartum Depression
ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT06545760. IPD Sharing: Not stated. Countries: 1. Publications: 0.
Involving Men in Maternity Care in Burkina Faso
ClinicalTrials.gov study NCT02309489. IPD Sharing: Not stated. Countries: 1. Publications: 0.
Data from: Age, pathogen exposure, but not maternal care shape offspring immunity in an insect with facultative family life
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Data from: Are species differences in maternal effects arising from maternal care adaptive?
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Data from: Linking genetic merit to sparse behavioral data: does behavior explain genetic variation for maternal care in Soay sheep?
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