The resolution of conflict in families

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThe emergence of family groups is associated with conflict over the allocation of food or other limited resources. Understanding the mechanisms mediating the resolution of such conflict is a major aim in behavioral ecology. Most empirical work on familial conflict has focused on birds. Here, we highlight how recent work on insects provides new and exciting insights into how such conflict is resolved. This work shows that conflict resolution can be more complex than traditionally envisioned, often involving multiple mechanisms. For example, it shows that the resolution of sexual conflict involves a combination of behavioral negotiation, direct assessment of partner's state, and manipulation using anti-aphrodisiacs or prenatal maternal effects. Furthermore, it highlights that there is a shift from the traditional emphasis on conflict (and competition) to a greater emphasis on the balance between conflict on the one hand and cooperation on the other

Male burying beetles extend, not reduce, parental care duration when reproductive competition is high

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThe published version is also available in ORE: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/22254Male parents spend less time caring than females in many species with biparental care. The traditional explanation for this pattern is that males have lower confidence of parentage, so they desert earlier in favour of pursuing other mating opportunities. However, one recent alternative hypothesis is that prolonged male parental care might also evolve if staying to care actively improves paternity. If this is the case, an increase in reproductive competition should be associated with increased paternal care. To test this prediction, we manipulated the level of reproductive competition experienced by burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides (Herbst, 1783). We found that caregiving males stayed for longer and mated more frequently with their partner when reproductive competition was greater. Reproductive productivity did not increase when males extended care. Our findings provide support for the increased paternity hypothesis. Extended duration of parental care may be a male tactic both protecting investment (in the current brood) and maximizing paternity (in subsequent brood(s) via female stored sperm) even if this fails to maximize current reproductive productivity and creates conflict of interest with their mate via costs associated with increased mating frequency

The role of indirect genetic effects in the evolution of interacting reproductive behaviors in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides

This is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Data archiving:Data available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9rk5f69.Social interactions can give rise to indirect genetic effects (IGEs), which occur when genes expressed in one individual affect the phenotype of another individual. The evolutionary dynamics of traits can be altered when there are IGEs. Sex often involves indirect effects arising from first order (current) or second order (prior) social interactions, yet IGEs are infrequently quantified for reproductive behaviors.Here, we use experimental populations of burying beetles that have experienced bidirectional selection on mating rate to test for social plasticity and IGEs associated with focal males mating with a female either without (first order effect) or with (second order effect) prior exposure to a competitor, and resource defense behavior (first order effect). Additive IGEs were detected for mating rate arising from (first order) interactions with females. For resource defense behavior, a standard variance partitioning analysis provided no evidence of additive genetic variance – either direct or indirect. However, behavior was predicted by focal size relative to that of the competitor, and size is also heritable. Assuming that behavior is causally dependent on relative size, this implies that both DGEs and IGEs do occur (and may potentially interact). The relative contribution of IGEs may differ among social behaviors related to mating which has consequences for the evolutionary trajectories of multivariate traits.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC

Antioxidant supplementation during early development reduces parasite load but does not affect sexual ornament expression in adult ring-necked pheasants Phasianus colchicus

ArticleCopyright © 2012 The Authors. Functional Ecology © 2012 British Ecological Society1. The ‘parasite-mediated sexual selection’ (PMSS) hypothesis predicts that exaggerated male ornamentation could provide a signal to females of a males ability to resist parasites. Empirical tests of the PMSS have been largely equivocal, however, which may be because most have not considered the role of early life-history effects. 2. Many sexually-selected traits are carotenoid-based. Allocation of dietary-derived carotenoids to sexual ornaments may trade-off with allocation to pro-inflammatory immune response and/or antioxidant functions, mediated by the oxidative status of individuals. Exposure to parasites can increase oxidative stress, so under this scenario sexually-selected traits indicate ability to resist oxidative stress rather than ability to resist parasites per se. Such life-history trade-offs, mediated by oxidative status of individuals, are particularly acute during growth and development. 3. Here we use ring-necked pheasants, Phasianus colchicus, a strongly sexually-selected species, to test whether supplementation with dietary antioxidants (vitamin E) can mitigate the effects of early exposure to parasites (the nematode, Heterakis gallinarum), via alteration of the oxidative status of individuals, and positively affect the expression of sexual ornaments at adulthood. 4. We found that vitamin E mediated the effect of early exposure to parasites on levels of oxidative damage at 8 weeks of age and reduced the parasite load of individuals at adulthood as predicted. However, the expression of sexual ornaments, immune function, and growth were unaffected by either early vitamin E supplementation or manipulation of parasite load. In contrast to the predictions of the PMSS hypothesis the intensity of sexual ornament expression was not related to either parasite load or oxidative status of individuals (current or long-term). Consequently there was no evidence that the expression of sexual ornaments provided information on the ability of males to resist infection from parasites.NERCRoyal Societ

Behavioral plasticity and G × E of reproductive tactics in Nicrophorus vespilloides burying beetles

Journal Article© 2015 The Author(s). Evolution published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution.Phenotypic plasticity is important in the evolution of traits and facilitates adaptation to rapid environmental changes. However, variation in plasticity at the individual level, and the heritable basis underlying this plasticity is rarely quantified for behavioral traits. Alternative behavioral reproductive tactics are key components of mating systems but are not often considered within a phenotypic plasticity framework (i.e., as reaction norms). Here, using lines artificially selected for repeated mating rate, we test for genetic (G × E) sources of variation in reproductive behavior of male Nicrophorus vespilloides burying beetles (including signaling behavior), as well as the role of individual body size, in responsiveness to changes in social environment. The results show that body size influences the response of individuals' signaling behavior to changes in the social environment. Moreover, there was G × E underlying the responses of males to variation in the quality of social environment experienced (relative size of focal male compared to his rival). This shows that individual variation in plasticity and social sensitivity of signaling behavior can evolve in response to selection on investment in mating behavior, with males selected for high mating investment having greater social sensitivity.NER

Selection on an antagonistic behavioral trait can drive rapid genital coevolution in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Male and female genital morphology varies widely across many taxa, and even among populations. Disentangling potential sources of selection on genital morphology is problematic because each sex is predicted to respond to adaptations in the other due to reproductive conflicts of interest. To test how variation in this sexual conflict trait relates to variation in genital morphology we used our previously developed artificial selection lines for high and low repeated mating rates. We selected for high and low repeated mating rates using monogamous pairings to eliminate contemporaneous female choice and male-male competition. Male and female genital shape responded rapidly to selection on repeated mating rate. High and low mating rate lines diverged from control lines after only 10 generations of selection. We also detected significant patterns of male and female genital shape coevolution among selection regimes. We argue that because our selection lines differ in sexual conflict, these results support the hypothesis that sexually antagonistic coevolution can drive the rapid divergence of genital morphology. The greatest divergence in morphology corresponded with lines in which the resolution of intrasexual conflict over mating rate was biased in favor of male interests.Funding was provided by Natural Environment Research Council grants NE/I025468/1 to N.J.R. and A.J.M., and NE/H003738/1 to A.J.M

The effect of size and sex ratio experiences on reproductive competition in Nicrophorus vespilloides burying beetles in the wild.

PublishedJournal ArticleThis is an open access article.Male parents face a choice: should they invest more in caring for offspring or in attempting to mate with other females? The most profitable course depends on the intensity of competition for mates, which is likely to vary with the population sex ratio. However, the balance of pay-offs may vary among individual males depending on their competitive prowess or attractiveness. We tested the prediction that sex ratio and size of the resource holding male provide cues regarding the level of mating competition prior to breeding and therefore influence the duration of a male's biparental caring in association with a female. Male burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides were reared, post-eclosion, in groups that differed in sex ratio. Experimental males were subsequently translocated to the wild, provided with a breeding resource (carcass) and filmed. We found no evidence that sex ratio cues prior to breeding affected future parental care behaviour but males that experienced male-biased sex ratios took longer to attract wild mating partners. Smaller males attracted a higher proportion of females than did larger males, securing significantly more monogamous breeding associations as a result. Smaller males thus avoided competitive male-male encounters more often than larger males. This has potential benefits for their female partners who avoid both intrasexual competition and direct costs of higher mating frequency associated with competing males.Natural Environment Research Council. NE/1528326/1, NE/1025468/

Do female Nicrophorus vespilloides reduce direct costs by choosing males that mate less frequently?

PublishedJournal ArticleSexual conflict occurs when selection to maximize fitness in one sex does so at the expense of the other sex. In the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, repeated mating provides assurance of paternity at a direct cost to female reproductive productivity. To reduce this cost, females could choose males with low repeated mating rates or smaller, servile males. We tested this by offering females a dichotomous choice between males from lines selected for high or low mating rate. Each female was then allocated her preferred or non-preferred male to breed. Females showed no preference for males based on whether they came from lines selected for high or low mating rates. Pairs containing males from high mating rate lines copulated more often than those with low line males but there was a negative relationship between female size and number of times she mated with a non-preferred male. When females bred with their preferred male the number of offspring reared increased with female size but there was no such increase when breeding with non-preferred males. Females thus benefited from being choosy, but this was not directly attributable to avoidance of costly male repeated mating.Funding was provided by Natural Environment Research Council grant no. NE/I025468 to N.J.R. and A.J.M

Environmental and Parental Influences on Offspring Health and Growth in Great Tits (Parus major)

PMCID: PMC3728352This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited