Benowitz Kyle M, Moore Allen J
Department of Genetics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA.
Biol J Linn Soc Lond. 2016 Dec;119(4):1082-1088. doi: 10.1111/bij.12830. Epub 2016 May 26.
Parenting strategies can be flexible within a species, and may have varying fitness effects. Understanding this flexibility and its fitness consequences is important for understanding why parenting strategies evolve. Here, we investigate the fitness consequences of flexible parenting in the burying beetle , a species known for its advanced provisioning behaviour of regurgitated vertebrate carrion to offspring by both sexes. We show that even when a parent is freely allowed to abandon the carcass at any point in time, biparental post-hatching care is the most common pattern of care adopted in . Furthermore, two parents together raised more offspring than single parents of either sex, showing that the presence of the male can directly influences parental fitness even in the absence of competitors. This contrasts with studies in other species of burying beetle, where biparental families do not differ in offspring number. This may explain why biparental care is more common in than in other burying beetles. We suggest how fitness benefits of two parents may play a role in the evolution and maintenance of flexible biparental care in .
育儿策略在一个物种内部可以是灵活的，并且可能具有不同的适应性影响。理解这种灵活性及其适应性后果对于理解育儿策略为何会进化很重要。在这里，我们研究了埋葬虫灵活育儿的适应性后果，埋葬虫是一种以两性都会将反刍的脊椎动物腐肉作为高级育雏食物而闻名的物种。我们发现，即使父母一方被自由允许在任何时间点放弃尸体，双亲孵化后的照料仍是最常见的照料模式。此外，双亲共同养育的后代比任何一性别的单亲养育的都多，这表明即使没有竞争者，雄性的存在也能直接影响亲代适应性。这与其他埋葬虫物种的研究形成对比，在其他埋葬虫物种中，双亲家庭的后代数量并无差异。这或许可以解释为什么双亲照料在该物种中比在其他埋葬虫中更为常见。我们提出双亲的适应性益处可能如何在该物种灵活的双亲照料的进化和维持中发挥作用。
