Flexible parents: joint effects of handicapping and brood size manipulation on female parental care in Nicrophorus vespilloides

• Published in: Journal of evolutionary biology Vol. 31; no. 5; pp. 646 - 656
• Main Authors: Ratz, Tom, Smiseth, Per T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2018
• Subjects: Animal behavior; Animals; Behavior, Animal - physiology; Carrion; Clutch Size; Coleoptera - physiology; cost and benefit of care; Female; Females; Food; Larvae; Nicrophorus vespilloides; Offspring; parental care decision; Parents; parent–offspring interactions; Predictive control; Provisioning; parental care decision; Nicrophorus vespilloides; cost and benefit of care; parent-offspring interactions

Parental care is highly variable, reflecting that parents make flexible decisions in response to variation in the cost of care to themselves and the benefit to their offspring. Much of the evidence that parents respond to such variation derives from handicapping and brood size manipulations, the sep...