The Quantitative Genetics of Sex Differences in Parenting

Sex differences in parenting are common in species where both males and females provide care. Although there is a considerable body of game and optimality theory for why the sexes should differ in parental care, genetics can also play a role, and no study has examined how genetic influences might in...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 105; no. 47; pp. 18430 - 18435
Main Authors Walling, Craig A., Stamper, Clare E., Smiseth, Per T., Moore, Allen J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 25.11.2008
National Acad Sciences
Subjects
Animal behavior
Animals
Beetles
Behavior, Animal
Biological Evolution
Biological Sciences
Correlation analysis
Evolution
Evolutionary genetics
Family size
Female
Female animals
Gender differences
Genetic correlation
Genetic diversity
Genetic variation
Genetics
Heritability
Insects
Intersexes
Male
Male animals
Nicrophorus
Parental behavior
Parenting
Phenotypic traits
Progeny
Quantitative genetics
Sex
Sex Characteristics
Sex differences
Sexual dimorphism
Specialization
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Summary:Sex differences in parenting are common in species where both males and females provide care. Although there is a considerable body of game and optimality theory for why the sexes should differ in parental care, genetics can also play a role, and no study has examined how genetic influences might influence differences in parenting. We investigated the extent that genetic variation influenced differences in parenting, whether the evolution of differences could be constrained by shared genetic influences, and how sex-specific patterns of genetic variation underlying parental care might dictate which behaviors are free to evolve in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. Females provided more direct care than males but did not differ in levels of indirect care or the number of offspring they were willing to rear. We found low to moderate levels of heritability and evolvability for all 3 parenting traits in both sexes. Intralocus sexual conflict was indicated by moderately strong intersex genetic correlations, but these were not so strong as to represent an absolute constraint to the evolution of sexual dimorphism in care behavior. Instead, the pattern of genetic correlations between parental behaviors showed sex-specific tradeoffs. Thus, differences in the genetic correlations between parental traits within a sex create sex-specific lines of least evolutionary resistance, which in turn produce the specific patterns of sex differences in parental care. Our results therefore suggest a mechanism for the evolution of behavioral specialization during biparental care if uniparental and biparental care behaviors share the same genetic influences.
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Author contributions: P.T.S. and A.J.M. conceived the project; C.A.W., C.E.S., and A.J.M. designed research; C.A.W., C.E.S., and A.J.M. performed research; C.A.W. and A.J.M. analyzed data; and C.A.W., C.E.S., P.T.S., and A.J.M. wrote the paper.
Edited by May R. Berenbaum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, and approved October 3, 2008
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0803146105