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3,183 results for “Parents”
Data from: Parental care mitigates carry-over effects of poor early conditions on offspring growth
Poor developmental conditions can have long-lasting negative effects on offspring phenotypes, but impacts often differ among species. Contrasting responses may reflect disparities in experimental protocols among single-species studies or inherent differences among species in their sensitivity to early conditions and/or ability to mitigate negative impacts. We used a common experimental protocol to assess and compare the role of parental care in mitigating effects of poor early conditions on offspring among 4 sympatric bird species in the wild. We experimentally induced low incubation temperatures and examined effects on embryonic developmental rates, hatching success, nestling growth rates, and parental responses. We examined the generality of these effects across 4 species that differ in their phylogenetic history, breeding ecology, and life histories. We found that cooling led to delayed hatching in all species, but carry-over effects on offspring differed among species. Parents of some but not all species increased their offspring provisioning rates in response to experimental cooling with critical benefits for offspring growth rates. Our study shows for the first time that species exhibit clear differences in the degree to which they are affected by poor early conditions. Observed differences among species demonstrate that parental care is a critical mechanism for mitigating potential negative effects on offspring and suggest that parental responses may be constrained to varying degrees by ecology and life histories.
Data from: The smell of parents: breeding status influences cuticular hydrocarbon pattern in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides
The waxy layer of the cuticle has been shown to play a fundamental role in recognition systems of insects. The biparental burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides is known to have the ability to discriminate between breeding and non-breeding conspecifics and also here cuticular substances could function as recognition cue. However, it has not yet been demonstrated that the pattern of cuticular lipids can reflect the breeding status of a beetle or of any other insect. With chemical analysis using coupled gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, we showed that the chemical signature of N. vespilloides males and females is highly complex and changes its feature with breeding status. Parental beetles were characterized by a higher amount of some unusual unsaturated hydrocarbons than beetles which are not caring for larvae. The striking correlation between cuticular profiles and breeding status suggests that cuticular hydrocarbons inform the beetles about parental state and thus enable them to discriminate between their breeding partner and a conspecific intruder. Furthermore, we found evidence that nutritional conditions also influence the cuticular profile and discuss the possibility that the diet provides the precursors for the unsaturated hydrocarbons observed in parental beetles. Our study underlines the fact that the cuticular pattern is rich of information and plays a central role in the burying beetles' communication systems.
Data from: Good parenting may not increase reproductive success under environmental extremes
For species exhibiting parental care, the way in which parents adjust care behaviour to compensate for environmental change potentially influences offspring survival and, ultimately, population viability. Using the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) – a species in which males provide parental care by building and tending a nest and fanning the eggs – we examined how low dissolved oxygen (DO) levels affect paternal care, embryo development and survival. While levels of nest tending were unaffected by DO level, we found that larger males fanned their embryos more under low oxygen conditions. This resulted in faster rates of embryo development within the clutches of these larger males, but reduced embryo survival at 7d post-fertilisation compared to clutches of smaller males. Our results suggest that although parents may attempt to compensate for environmental change via alterations to care behaviour, their ability to do so can be dependent on parental phenotype. This sets up the potential for oxygen levels to act on the strength and direction of selection within populations. We discuss possible explanations for the surprising result that supposedly adaptive changes in care behaviour by large males (i.e. increased fanning) led to reduced embryo survival at 7d post-fertilisation, and whether, as a consequence, acute environmental conditions may have the potential to overwhelm selection on sexual traits.
Data from: Multiple simultaneous treatments change plant response from adaptive parental effects to within-generation plasticity, in Arabidopsis thaliana
In general, studies on plant phenotypic plasticity concentrate on plant responses to different levels of a single environmental factor. Under natural conditions, however, multiple environmental factors often vary simultaneously. I studied the consequences for lifetime fitness caused by single treatments or treatment combinations by investigating patterns of phenotypic plasticity within and between generations. The parental plants (3 genotypes of the annual plant Arabidopsis thaliana) received zero, one or two stress treatments at an early life-stage. The treatments included wounding, shading, chilling, and their pairwise combinations. In the second generation, offspring of treated plants received either the parental or no treatment. Offspring of non-treated plants were reared under all treatment conditions. Plants responded strongly to the treatments, especially through delayed reproduction, which positively affected lifetime fitness. Notably, treatment combinations triggered stronger plastic responses on average. Because the delay in reproduction was offset by a delay in senescence, the treatments resulted in a fitness gain instead of a loss. However, under adverse environmental conditions, this delay represents a potential fitness cost, especially when the time for reproduction is limited. The treatments wounding and shading triggered parental effects that increased fitness only in plants that themselves received the treatment. Untreated offspring of wounded or shaded parents performed like control plants. Also, these parental effects were not accompanied by potential fitness costs, such as delayed reproduction. Chilling triggered genotype-specific parental effects that increased or reduced fitness. Of the treatment combinations only wounding and shading resulted in genotype-specific parental effects that increased or reduced fitness independently of offspring treatment. These results suggest that the response of annual plants to treatment combinations triggers predominantly within-generation plastic responses that include potential fitness costs, which cannot be inferred from studies that manipulate environmental factors individually. Therefore, single treatment studies likely underestimate the costs of plasticity in natural environments.
Data from: No evidence for parent-offspring competition in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides
In species where family members share a limited pool of resources, there may be competition between parents and their dependent offspring for access to these resources. Parent-offspring competition may impose a cost to family living that would constrain the evolution of parental care and family living. Yet, few studies have tested for evidence of parent-offspring competition. Here we test for parent-offspring competition in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. This species breeds on carcasses of small vertebrates that serve as food for both parents and offspring. We used a two-by-two factorial design, where we manipulated female nutritional state (food-deprivation versus control treatments) and the amount of resources (small versus large mouse carcasses). We find that food-deprived females lost more mass than controls over the 9-day long food deprivation treatment, confirming that food-deprivation caused a substantial decline in female nutritional state at the start of breeding. However, we find no evidence that increased food consumption by food-deprived females had a greater impact on offspring growth or survival when breeding on small carcasses. Instead, poor female nutritional state had a negative impact on offspring survival when females bred on large carcasses. There was more mould on the carcass when food-deprived females bred on a large carcass, suggesting that such females provided less indirect care serving to suppress microbial growth. We conclude that parent-offspring competition is associated with relatively minor costs to family members in this species, suggesting that it may not necessarily constrain the evolution of parental care and family living.
Data from: Acoustic communication in zebra finches signals when mates will take turns with parental duties
Bi-parental care may involve both cooperation and conflict between parents. Parents adjust their workload to that of their partner and this ability is likely to affect reproductive success. Whether mates communicate, either to resolve the sexual conflict or to coordinate their joint investment in parental care is a largely unaddressed question which we examined by recording wild zebra finches at the nest during incubation. Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) partners produce vocal exchanges at the nest that can be characterized as duets. Some duets end in nest-relief (when birds take turns incubating and foraging) but some do not (when the foraging mate vocally interacts with its incubating partner by coming inside or in the vicinity of the nest). Our data indicate that the structure of the duet predicted its outcome (relief or not), with a parent calling differently before leaving or staying in the nest by modifying its vocal repertoire as well as the acoustic structure of one particular call type which is typically used inside the nest. Zebra finch partners may thus exchange on the time to take turns with parental duties. Our results show that acoustic communication between partners might be of importance in the organization of parental care and could help in understanding sexual conflict resolution or cooperation phenomena in future studies.
Data from: Negative association between parental care and sibling cooperation in earwigs: a new perspective on the early evolution of family life?
The evolution of family life requires net fitness benefits for offspring, which are commonly assumed to mainly derive from parental care. However, an additional source of benefits for offspring is often overlooked: cooperative interactions among juvenile siblings. In this study, we examined how sibling cooperation and parental care could jointly contribute to the early evolution of family life. Specifically, we tested whether the level of food transferred among siblings (sibling cooperation) in the European earwig Forficula auricularia (1) depends on the level of maternal food provisioning (parental care), and (2) is translated into offspring survival, as well as female investment into future reproduction. We show that higher levels of sibling food transfer were associated with lower levels of maternal food provisioning, possibly reflecting a compensatory relationship between sibling cooperation and maternal care. Furthermore, the level of sibling food transfer did not influence offspring survival, but was associated with negative effects on the production of the second and terminal clutch by the tending mothers. These findings indicate that sibling cooperation could mitigate the detrimental effects on offspring survival that result from being tended by low quality mothers. More generally, they are in line with the hypothesis that sibling cooperation is an ancestral behavior that can be retained to compensate for insufficient levels of parental investment.
Data from: Evolution of iris colour in relation to cavity nesting and parental care in passerine birds
Strong selection pressures are known to act on animal coloration. Although many animals vary in eye colour, virtually no research has investigated the functional significance of these colour traits. Passeriformes have a range of iris colours, making them an ideal system to investigate how and why iris colour has evolved. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we tested the hypothesis that conspicuous iris colour in passerine birds evolved in response to (a) coordination of offspring care and (b) cavity nesting, two traits thought to be involved in intra-specific gaze sensitivity. We found that iris colour and cooperative offspring care by two or more individuals evolved independently, suggesting that bright eyes are not important for coordinating parental care through eye gaze. Furthermore, we found that evolution between iris colour and nesting behaviour did occur in a dependent manner, but contrary to predictions, transitions to coloured eyes were not more frequent in cavity nesters than non-cavity nesters. Instead, our results indicate that selection away from having bright eyes was much stronger in non-cavity nesters than cavity nesters, perhaps because conspicuous eye coloration in species not concealed within a cavity would be more visible to predators.
Data from: Parental optimism versus parental pessimism in plants: how common should we expect pollen limitation to be?
Many organisms exhibit parental optimism, producing more of the initial stages of offspring (e.g., eggs, embryos) than they can usually mature. For plants, parental optimism may be linked to the risk of seed production being limited by pollen receipt (pollen limitation). Here we elaborate a stochastic model of pollen limitation developed by Haig and Westoby (1988) and Burd (2008) and link it with published data on the magnitudes of prepollination costs versus postpollination costs of seed production in 80 plant species. We demonstrate that parental optimism should be expected when prepollination costs of seed production are small relative to postpollination costs. This was observed for most (62 of 80) of the plant taxa surveyed. Under parental optimism, plants overinvest in securing fertilized ovules, and consequently pollen limitation is predicted to be uncommon. However, for a sizable minority of plant species (18 of 80), prepollination costs approach or exceed postpollination costs. For these species, parental pessimism is instead optimal. Parents initiate fewer zygotes than they can usually mature, and pollen limitation is predicted to be severe. Because the relative magnitudes of prepollination and postpollination costs vary by more than 1,000-fold across plant taxa, parental outlook (optimism vs. pessimism) and levels of pollen limitation are predicted to vary widely.
Data from: Parenting behaviour is highly heritable in male stickleback
Parental care is critical for fitness, yet little is known about its genetic basis. Here, we estimate the heritability of parenting behaviour in a species famous for its diversity and its behavioural repertoire: three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Male threespined stickleback are the sole providers of paternal care that is necessary for offspring survival, therefore this system offers the opportunity to study the inheritance of parental behavior when selection is primarily acting on males. Fanning behaviour is a conspicuous parental behaviour that is readily quantified in this species. We show that the heritability of fanning behaviour is ≥0.9, and significantly different from zero within a freshwater population. Moreover, there was abundant genetic variation for fanning behaviour, indicating that it could readily evolve. These results suggest that parenting behaviour is tractable for further genetic dissection in this system.
Data from: Parental habituation to human disturbance over time reduces fear of humans in coyote offspring
A fundamental tenet of maternal effects assumes that maternal variance over time should have discordant consequences for offspring traits across litters. Yet, seldom are parents observed across multiple reproductive bouts, with few studies considering anthropogenic disturbances as an ecological driver of maternal effects. We observed captive coyote (Canis latrans) pairs over two successive litters to determine whether among-litter differences in behavior (i.e., risk-taking) and hormones (i.e., cortisol and testosterone) corresponded with parental plasticity in habituation. Thus, we explicitly test the hypothesis that accumulating experiences of anthropogenic disturbance reduces parental fear across reproductive bouts, which should have disparate phenotypic consequences for first- and second-litter offspring. To quantify risk-taking behavior, we used foraging assays from 5–15 weeks of age with a human observer present as a proxy for human disturbance. At 5, 10, and 15 weeks of age, we collected shaved hair to quantify pup hormone levels. We then used a quantitative genetic approach to estimate heritability, repeatability, and between-trait correlations. We found that parents were riskier (i.e., foraged more frequently) with their second versus first litters, supporting our prediction that parents become increasingly habituated over time. Second-litter pups were also less risk-averse than their first-litter siblings. Heritability for all traits did not differ from zero (0.001-0.018); however, we found moderate support for repeatability in all observed traits (r = 0.085-0.421). Lastly, we found evidence of positive phenotypic and cohort correlations among pup traits, implying that cohort identity (i.e., common environment) contributes to the development of phenotypic syndromes in coyote pups. Our results suggest that parental habituation may be an ecological cue for offspring to reduce their fear response, thus emphasizing the role of parental plasticity in shaping their pups' behavioral and hormonal responses toward humans.
Data from: No evidence for sibling or parent-offspring coadaptation in a wild population of blue tits, despite high power.
Parent and offspring behaviours are expected to act as both the agents and targets of selection. This may generate parent-offspring coadaptation in which parent and offspring behaviours become genetically correlated in a way that increases inclusive fitness. Cross-fostering has been used to study parent-offspring coadaptation, with the prediction that offspring raised by non-relatives, or parents raising non-relatives, should suffer fitness costs. Using long-term data from more than 400 partially crossed broods of blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) we show there is no difference in mass or survival between crossed and non-crossed chicks. However, previous studies for which the evidence for parent-offspring coadaptation is strongest compare chicks from fully crossed broods with those from non-crossed broods. When parent-offspring coadaptation acts at the level of the brood then partial cross-fostering experiments are not expected to show evidence of coadaptation. To test this, we performed an additional cross-fostering experiment (163 broods) in which clutches were either fully crossed, non-crossed, or partiallycrossed. In agreement with the long-term data, there was no evidence for parent-offspring coadaptationon offspring fitness depsite high power. In addition there was no evidence of effects on parental fitness, nor evidnce of sibling coadaptation, although the power of these tests was more modest.
Data from: Assignment of homoeologues to parental genomes in allopolyploids for species tree inference, with an example from Fumaria (Papaveraceae)
There is a rising awareness that species trees are best inferred from multiple loci while taking into account processes affecting individual gene trees, such as substitution model error (failure of the model to account for the complexity of the data) and coalescent stochasticity (presence of incomplete lineage sorting). Although most studies have been carried out in the context of dichotomous species trees, these processes operate also in more complex evolutionary histories involving multiple hybridizations and polyploidy. Recently, methods have been developed that accurately handle incomplete lineage sorting in allopolyploids, but they are thus far restricted to networks of diploids and tetraploids. We propose a procedure that improves on this limitation by designing a workflow that assigns homoeologues to hypothetical diploid ancestral genomes prior to genome tree construction. Conflicting assignment hypotheses are evaluated against substitution model error and coalescent stochasticity. Incongruence that cannot be explained by stochastic mechanisms needs to be explained by other processes (e.g., homoploid hybridization or paralogy). The data can then be filtered to build multilabeled genome phylogenies using inference methods that can recover species trees, either in the face of substitution model error and coalescent stochasticity alone, or while simultaneously accounting for hybridization. Methods are already available for folding the resulting multilabeled genome phylogeny into a network. We apply the workflow to the reconstruction of the reticulate phylogeny of the plant genus Fumaria (Papaveraceae) with ploidal levels ranging from 2x to 14x. We describe the challenges in recovering nuclear NRPB2 homoeologues in high ploidy species while combining in vivo cloning and direct sequencing techniques. Using parametric bootstrapping simulations we assign nuclear homoeologues and chloroplast sequences (four concatenated loci) to their common hypothetical diploid ancestral genomes. As these assignments hinge on effective population size assumptions, we investigate how varying these assumptions impacts the recovered multilabeled genome phylogeny.
Data from: Parental care and the evolution of terrestriality in frogs
Frogs and toads (Anura) exhibit some of the most diverse parental strategies in vertebrates. Identifying the evolutionary origins of parenting is fundamental to understanding the relationships between sexual selection, social evolution and parental care systems of contemporary Anura. Moreover, parenting has been hypothesized to allow the invasion of terrestrial habitats by the ancestors of terrestrial vertebrates. Using comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of frogs and toads based on data from over 1000 species that represent 46 out of 55 Anura families, we test whether parental care is associated with terrestrial reproduction and several life history traits. Here we show that both the duration of care and offspring protection by males and females have co-evolved with terrestrial reproduction. Sexual size dimorphism is also related to care, since large male size relative to female size is associated with increased paternal care. Furthermore, increased egg size and reduced clutch volume are associated with increased care in bivariate but not in multivariate analyses, suggesting that the relationships between care, egg size and clutch volume are mediated by terrestrial reproduction. Taken together, our results suggest that parenting by males and females has co-evolved, and complex parenting traits have evolved several times independently in Anura in response to breeding in terrestrial environments.
Data from: Costs and benefits of polyandry in a placental poeciliid fish Heterandria formosa are in accordance with the parent-offspring conflict theory of placentation
In viviparous species, a conflict over maternal resource allocation may arise between mothers and embryos, between siblings, and between maternal and paternal genes within an embryo due to relatedness asymmetries. We performed two experiments to study the effects of polyandry and brood relatedness on offspring growth in a placental fish (Heterandria formosa). Polyandry was beneficial as it increased the probability of pregnancy, possibly to avoid genetic incompatibility. However, females mated to four males produced offspring that had a longer maturation time than those of monandrous females. When within-brood relatedness was manipulated, the size of the newborn offspring decreased with time in low relatedness treatment, while in highly related broods offspring size was constant. Low within-brood relatedness may lead to less cooperative offspring in terms of resource extraction from the mother, which may lead to impaired development during gestation. Offspring conflict may thus reduce the benefits of polyandry in viviparous species.
Data from: Male burying beetles extend, not reduce, parental care duration when reproductive competition is high
Male parents spend less time caring than females in many species with biparental care. The traditional explanation for this pattern is that males have lower confidence of parentage, so they desert earlier in favor of pursuing other mating opportunities. However, one recent alternative hypothesis is that prolonged male parental care might also evolve if staying to care actively improves paternity. If this is the case, an increase in reproductive competition should be associated with increased paternal care. To test this prediction we manipulated the level of reproductive competition experienced by burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides (Herbst, 1783). We found that caregiving males stayed for longer and mated more frequently with their partner when reproductive competition was greater. Reproductive productivity did not increase when males extended care. Our findings provide support for the increased paternity hypothesis. Extended duration of parental care may be a male tactic both protecting investment (in the current brood) and maximising paternity (in subsequent brood(s) via female stored sperm) even if this fails to maximise current reproductive productivity and creates conflict of interest with their mate via costs associated with increased mating frequency.
Data from: How does parental environment influence the potential for adaptation to global change?
Parental environments are regularly shown to alter the mean fitness of offspring, but their impacts on the genetic variation for fitness, which predicts adaptive capacity and is also measured on offspring, are unclear. Consequently, how parental environments mediate adaptation to environmental stressors, like those accompanying global change, is largely unknown. Here, using an ecologically-important marine tubeworm in a quantitative-genetic breeding design, we tested how parental exposure to projected ocean warming alters the mean survival, and genetic variation for survival, of offspring during their most vulnerable life stage under current and projected temperatures. Offspring survival was higher when parent and offspring temperatures matched. Across offspring temperatures, parental exposure to warming altered the distribution of additive genetic variance for survival, making it covary across current and projected temperatures in a way that may aid adaptation to future warming. Parental exposure to warming also amplified nonadditive genetic variance for survival, suggesting that compatibilities between parental genomes may grow increasingly important under future warming. Our study shows that parental environments potentially have broader-ranging effects on adaptive capacity than currently appreciated, not only mitigating the negative impacts of global change, but also reshaping the raw fuel for evolutionary responses to it.
Data from: Measuring selection when parents and offspring interact
Non-social and social selection gradients are key evolutionary parameters in systems where individuals interact. They are most easily obtained by regressing an individual's fitness on the trait values of the individual and its social partner. In the context of parental care it is more common to regress the trait value of the parents (i.e. the social partner) on a 'mixed' fitness measure that is a function of the parent's and offspring's fitness (for example, the number of recruits, which equals parental fecundity multiplied by offspring survival). For such an approach to yield correct estimates of net-selection, the trait must be sex-limited and not affect the parents' own survival. When a trait is not sex-limited, the non-social selection should be weighted by one (because all individuals express the trait) and social selection should be weighted by a half (because the relatedness between parents and the offspring they care for is a half, usually). The 'mixed' fitness approach does not give estimates of both components of selection and so they cannot be weighted appropriately. We show that mixed fitness components are frequently used in place of direct fitness measures in the literature (37% of fecundity selection estimates use a mixed fitness approach), but that the frequency is much higher in some taxa, such as birds and mammals. We suggest alternative methods that could be used to estimate both social and non-social selection gradients, while at the same time assessing the importance of unmeasured traits.
FIGURE 1 in Dolichopus nimbatus Parent, 1927 revisited, with two new synonyms (Diptera: Dolichopodidae)
FIGURE 1. Dolichopus nimbatus Parent, holotype (female) (habitus).
FIGURE 2 in Dolichopus nimbatus Parent, 1927 revisited, with two new synonyms (Diptera: Dolichopodidae)
FIGURE 2. Dolichopus balius Meuffels, male paratype (habitus).
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