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148 results for “burying beetle”
Data for: Biomechanical adaptations enable phoretic mite species to occupy distinct spatial niches on host burying beetles
<p>Niche theory predicts that ecologically similar species coexist by minimising interspecific competition through niche partitioning. Therefore understanding the mechanisms of niche partitioning is essential for predicting interactions and coexistence between competing organisms. Here we study two phoretic mite species, <em>Poecilochirus carabi, </em>and <em>Macrocheles nataliae</em> that coexist on the same host-burying beetle <em>Nicrophorus vespilloides </em>and use it to 'hitchhike' between reproductive sites. Field observations revealed clear spatial partitioning between species in distinct host body parts. <em>P. carabi</em> preferred the ventral side of the thorax, whereas <em>M. nataliae </em>were exclusively found ventrally at the hairy base of the abdomen. Experimental manipulations of mite density showed that each species preferred these body parts, largely regardless of the density of the other mite species on the host beetle. Force measurements indicated that this spatial distribution is mediated by biomechanical adaptations, because each mite species required more force to be removed from their preferred location on the beetle. While <em>P. carabi</em> attached with large adhesive pads to the smooth thorax cuticle, <em>M. nataliae</em> gripped abdominal setae with their chelicerae. Our results show that specialist biomechanical adaptations for attachment can mediate spatial niche partitioning among species sharing the same host.</p>
Data for: Biomechanical adaptations enable phoretic mite species to occupy distinct spatial niches on host burying beetles
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Data and code for: Moisture and competition constrain ephemeral resource quality for burying beetle reproduction
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Seasonal patterns of resource use within natural populations of burying beetles
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Increased allocation to reproduction reduces future competitive ability in a burying beetle
<p>1. The existence of a trade-off between current and future reproduction is a fundamental prediction of life-history theory. Support for this prediction comes from brood size manipulations, showing that caring for enlarged broods often reduces the parent's future survival or fecundity. However, in many species, individuals must invest in competing for the resources required for future reproduction. Thus, a neglected aspect of this trade-off is that increased allocation to current reproduction may reduce an individual's future competitive ability.</p> <p>2. We tested this prediction in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, a species where parents care for their offspring and where there is fierce competition for resources used for breeding.</p> <p>3. We manipulated reproductive effort by providing females with either a small brood of 10 larvae or a large brood of 40 larvae and compared the ability of these females, and virgin females that had no prior access to a carcass, to compete for a second carcass against a virgin competitor.</p> <p>4. We found that increased allocation to current reproduction reduced future competitive ability, as females that had cared for a small brood were more successful when competing for a second carcass against a virgin competitor than females that had cared for a large brood. In addition, the costs of reproduction were offset by the benefits of feeding from the carcass during an initial breeding attempt, as females that had cared for a small brood were better competitors than virgin females that had no prior access to a carcass, whilst females that had cared for a large brood were similar in competitive ability to virgin females.</p> <p>5. Our results add to our understanding of the trade-off between current and future reproduction by showing that this trade-off can manifest through differences in future competitive ability and that direct benefits of reproduction can offset some of these costs. 16-Apr-2020</p>
Data from: Flexible females: nutritional state influences biparental cooperation in a burying beetle
<p>In species that provide biparental care, there is sexual conflict between parents over how much each should contribute towards caring for their joint offspring. Theoretical models for the resolution of this conflict through behavioral negotiation between parents assume that parents cannot assess their partner's state directly but do so indirectly by monitoring their partner's contribution. Here, we test whether parents can assess their partner's state directly by investigating the effect of nutritional state on cooperation between parents in the burying beetle <em>Nicrophorus vespilloides</em>. We used a two-by-two factorial design, in which a well-fed or food-deprived female was paired with a well-fed or food-deprived male. We found that females adjusted their level of care in response to both their own nutritional state and that of their partner and that these decisions were independent of their partner's contribution. We found no evidence that males responded directly to nutritional state. Males instead responded indirectly based on the contribution of their partner. Our results suggest that parents are able to assess the state of their partner, in contrast to what has been assumed, and that these assessments play an important role in the mediation of sexual conflict between caring parents.</p>
Experimental evolution of a more restrained clutch size when filial cannibalism is prevented in burying beetles Nicrophorus vespilloides
<p>The over-production of offspring is commonly associated with high hatching failure and a mechanism for dispensing with surplus young. We used experimental evolution of burying beetle populations Nicrophorus vespilloides to determine causality in these correlations. We asked: does eliminating the mechanism for killing 'spare' offspring cause the evolution of a more restrained clutch size, and consequently select for reduced hatching failure? N. vespilloides typically over-produces eggs but kills 1st instar larvae through partial filial cannibalism during brood care. We established replicate evolving populations that either could practice filial cannibalism (Full Care) or could not, by removing parents before their young hatched (No Care). After 20+ generations of experimental evolution, we measured clutch size and hatching success. We found that No Care females produced fewer eggs than Full Care females when allowed to breed on a small corpse, a finding not explained by differences in female quality. On larger corpses, females from both populations laid similar numbers of eggs. Furthermore, hatching success was greater in the No Care populations on small corpses. Our results suggest that the adaptive over-production of offspring depends on a mechanism for eliminating surplus young and that killing offspring, in turn, relaxes selection against hatching failure.</p>
Data from: Access to resources buffers against effects of current reproduction on future ability to provide care in a burying beetle
<p>Studies investigating the trade-off between current and future reproduction often find that increased allocation to current reproduction is associated with a reduction in the number or quality of future offspring. In species that provide parental care, this effect on future offspring may be mediated through a reduced future ability to provide care. Here, we test this idea in the burying beetle <em>Nicrophorus vespilloides</em>, a species in which parents shift the cost of reproduction towards future offspring and provide elaborate parental care. We manipulated brood size to alter the costs females experienced in association with current reproduction and measured the level of parental care during a subsequent breeding attempt. Given that these beetles breed on carcasses of small vertebrates, it is important to consider confounding effects due to benefits associated with resource access during breeding. We therefore manipulated access to carrion and measured the level of parental care during a subsequent breeding attempt. We found that females provided the same level of care regardless of previous brood size and resource access, suggesting that neither affected future ability to provide care. This may reflect that parents feed on carrion during breeding, which may buffer against any costs of previous breeding attempts. Our results show that increased allocation to current reproduction is not necessarily associated with a reduction in future ability to provide care. Nevertheless, this may reflect unique aspects of our study system, and we encourage future work on systems where parents do not have access to a rich resource during breeding.</p>
Can age-related changes in parental care modulate inbreeding depression? A test using the burying beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis
<p>Parental care has been shown to reduce the magnitude of inbreeding depression in some species with facultative care. However, parents often vary in the quality or amount of care they provide to their offspring and it is less clear whether this variation also impacts the magnitude of inbreeding depression. Here, we tested whether age related changes in parental care modulate the expression of inbreeding depression in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis. Consistent with previous studies, we found that older parents produced larger broods of offspring than younger parents without sacrificing mean larval mass. Inbreeding depression was evident in several fitness-related traits: brood size at dispersal, the proportion of the brood that survived to eclosion, and mean age at death were all reduced in inbred broods compared to outbred broods. Surprisingly, inbred offspring were heavier at dispersal than outbred offspring. This was likely due to reduced sibling competition in inbred broods. Despite evidence for age related changes in parental investment and the existence of inbreeding depression, there was no evidence that an interaction between the two influenced any of the traits we measured. Our results suggest that age-related changes in parental care may be too slight to influence the expression of inbreeding depression.</p>
Nest construction and its effect on post-hatching family life in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides
<p>Through the effort required to construct them, the microenvironmental conditions they impose on the family and their indirect influence on post-hatching care, nests play a key role in influencing family life. We combined experimental evolution with cross-fostering experiments on laboratory populations of <em>Nicrophorus vespilloides </em>to investigate three ways in which the nest can contribute more broadly to parental investment. We used replicate populations of <em>N. vespilloides </em>that had evolved for 42 generations under contrasting regimes of care. Populations were either able to supply post-hatching care ("Full Care") or prevented from supplying any post-hatching care ("No Care"). Research on these populations has previously shown that the No Care populations evolved to build rounder nests, more rapidly, by Generation 14. Here we found: 1) larvae raised by Full Care parents on nests prepared by parents from the No Care population did not attain a higher mass by the end of larval development than larvae in other treatments. However, we did discover that: 2) cross-fostering nests between families consistently reduced larval mass – and to a similar extent whether nests were cross-fostered between or within the populations. We suggest that cross-fostering disrupted the chemical environment on and around the nest since we found no evidence that 3) nests mediate interactions between males and females. The duration of paternal care was consistently shorter than the duration of maternal care, and even shorter for males from the No Care populations than males from the Full Care populations. Nevertheless, the duration of male care did not predict variation in duration of female care. In short, although the nest is the substrate for burying beetle family life, we found little evidence that it had evolved divergently in our experimental populations to influence parental investment.</p>
Data from: The Competitive exclusion – tolerance rule explains habitat partitioning among co-occurring species of burying beetles
<p>Habitat partitioning among co-occurring, ecologically similar species is widespread in nature and thought to be an important mechanism for coexistence. The factors that cause habitat partitioning, however, are unknown for most species. We experimentally tested among three alternative hypotheses to explain habitat partitioning among two species of co-occurring burying beetle (<em>Nicrophorus</em>) that occupy forest (<em>N. orbicollis</em>) and wetland (<em>N. hebes</em>) habitats. Captive experiments revealed that the larger <em>N. orbicollis </em>(forest) was consistently dominant to <em>N. hebes </em>(wetland) in competitive interactions for carcasses that they require for reproduction. Transplant enclosure experiments in nature revealed that <em>N. hebes</em> had poor reproductive success whenever the dominant <em>N. orbicollis</em> was present. In the absence of <em>N. orbicollis</em>, <em>N. hebes</em> performed as well, or better, in forest versus its typical wetland habitat. In contrast, <em>N. orbicollis </em>performed poorly in wetlands regardless of the presence of <em>N. hebes</em>. These results support the Competitive exclusion – tolerance rule where the competitively dominant <em>N. orbicollis</em> excludes the subordinate <em>N. hebes</em> from otherwise suitable or preferable forest habitat, while the subordinate <em>N. hebes</em> is uniquely able to tolerate the challenges of breeding in wetlands. Transplant experiments further showed that carcass burial depth – an important trait thought to enhance the competitive ability of the dominant <em>N. orbicollis</em> – is costly in wetland habitats. When in the presence of <em>N. hebes, N. orbicollis</em> buried carcasses deeper; deeper burial is thought to provide a competitive advantage in forests, but further compromised the reproductive success of <em>N. orbicollis </em>in wetlands. Overall, results provide evidence that the Competitive exclusion – tolerance rule underlies habitat partitioning among ecologically similar species, and that the traits important for competitive dominance in relatively benign environments are costly in more challenging environments, consistent with a trade-off.</p>
Data from: The scent of offspring: chemical profiles of larvae change during development and affect parental behavior in a burying beetle
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Data from: The Competitive exclusion – tolerance rule explains habitat partitioning among co-occurring species of burying beetles
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Sex ratio modulates reproductive output and dung burying behavior in dung beetle <em>Gymnopleurus sturmi</em> (Macleay, 1821) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)
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Can age-related changes in parental care modulate inbreeding depression? A test using the burying beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis
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Data from: Access to resources buffers against effects of current reproduction on future ability to provide care in a burying beetle
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Increased allocation to reproduction reduces future competitive ability in a burying beetle
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Use of charred vertebrate carcasses by carrion beetles: Implications of controlled burns and wildfires for the American burying beetle, Nicrophorus americanus
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Data from: Revisiting the ecology and evolution of burying beetles (Staphylinidae: Silphinae)
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Data from: Flexible females: nutritional state influences biparental cooperation in a burying beetle
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