Correlated evolution in parental care in females but not males in response to selection on paternity assurance behaviour

• Published in: Ecology letters Vol. 17; no. 7; pp. 803 - 810
• Main Authors: Head, Megan L, Hinde, Camilla A, Moore, Allen J, Royle, Nick J, Kempenaers, Bart
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Science 01.07.2014; Blackwell Publishing Ltd; Blackwell; BlackWell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal behavior; Animal reproduction; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; artificial selection; Behavior, Animal - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Evolution; biparental care; burying beetles; co-evolution; Coleoptera - physiology; conflict; crossing; Evolution; Female; females; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; interacting phenotypes; investment; Letters; Male; males; Nicrophorus; Nicrophorus vespilloides; Parental care; paternity; progeny; Reproduction; selection response; Sexual Behavior, Animal - physiology; sexual conflict; sexual selection; sperm competition; success; tactics; Parental care; Coleoptera; Insecta; Sexual conflict; Artificial selection; Male; Paternity; Coevolution; co-evolution; Arthropoda; Silphidae; Female; Nicrophorus vespilloides; Invertebrata; sexual conflict; artificial selection
• ISSN: 1461-023X; 1461-0248
• DOI: 10.1111/ele.12284

According to classical parental care theory males are expected to provide less parental care when offspring in a brood are less likely to be their own, but empirical evidence in support of this relationship is equivocal. Recent work predicts that social interactions between the sexes can modify co‐evolution between traits involved in mating and parental care as a result of costs associated with these social interactions (i.e. sexual conflict). In burying beetles (Nicrophorus vespilloides), we use artificial selection on a paternity assurance trait, and crosses within and between selection lines, to show that selection acting on females, not males, can drive the co‐evolution of paternity assurance traits and parental care. Males do not care more in response to selection on mating rate. Instead, patterns of parental care change as an indirect response to costs of mating for females.