Ma Donghui, Ma Long, Komdeur Jan
Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, 9712 CP Groningen, The Netherlands.
GIGA-Neurosciences, Interdisciplinary Center for Biomedical Research (GIGA-Institute), University of Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium.
Insects. 2025 Apr 2;16(4):378. doi: 10.3390/insects16040378.
Understanding how organisms respond to temperature variation is essential for assessing and predicting their resilience and vulnerability to environmental and climate changes. Here, using a biparental care burying beetle (), we tested whether and how parental investment in carcass preparation and ambient temperature interact to influence subsequent parental care behaviour and reproductive success. We employed a 3 × 2 factorial experiment, manipulating the levels of parental investment in carcass preparation (Reduced, Control, and Elevated) and ambient temperatures (benign: 20 °C and harsh: 23 °C) in breeding pairs. We found the following: (1) Irrespective of ambient temperature, males in the Reduced group decreased their pre-hatching care. (2) Across all investment groups, both sexes under higher temperature reduced post-hatching care. (3) Carcass-preparation investment and ambient temperature interactively influenced reproductive success. Overall, the harsh temperature decreased reproductive success. Furthermore, beetle pairs experiencing reduced carcass-preparation investment produced fewer eggs and lighter broods, while those experiencing elevated carcass-preparation investment produced smaller and lighter broods. Our findings provide new insights into how temperature variation affects parental investment strategies and enhance our understanding of the phenotypic plasticity in reproductive strategies that animals employ to cope with climate change.
了解生物体如何应对温度变化对于评估和预测它们对环境和气候变化的恢复力及脆弱性至关重要。在此，我们以一种双亲照料的埋葬甲虫（）为研究对象，测试了亲代在尸体处理方面的投入与环境温度如何相互作用，进而影响后续的亲代照料行为和繁殖成功率。我们采用了一个3×2析因实验，对繁殖对中亲代在尸体处理方面的投入水平（减少、对照和增加）以及环境温度（适宜温度：20°C和恶劣温度：23°C）进行了操控。我们发现以下几点：（1）无论环境温度如何，减少组中的雄性都会减少孵化前的照料。（2）在所有投入组中，温度较高时，两性都会减少孵化后的照料。（3）尸体处理投入和环境温度对繁殖成功率有交互影响。总体而言，恶劣温度会降低繁殖成功率。此外，尸体处理投入减少的甲虫对产卵量更少且幼虫更轻，而尸体处理投入增加的甲虫对幼虫数量更少且更轻。我们的研究结果为温度变化如何影响亲代投资策略提供了新的见解，并增进了我们对动物为应对气候变化而采用的繁殖策略中表型可塑性的理解。
