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Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment

Sexual conflict drives the coevolution of sexually antagonistic traits, such that an adaptation in one sex selects an opposing coevolutionary response from the other. Although many adaptations and counteradaptations have been identified in sexual conflict over mating interactions, few are known for...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Boncoraglio, Giuseppe, Kilner, Rebecca M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3280230/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22355390
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031713
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author Boncoraglio, Giuseppe
Kilner, Rebecca M.
author_facet Boncoraglio, Giuseppe
Kilner, Rebecca M.
author_sort Boncoraglio, Giuseppe
collection PubMed
description Sexual conflict drives the coevolution of sexually antagonistic traits, such that an adaptation in one sex selects an opposing coevolutionary response from the other. Although many adaptations and counteradaptations have been identified in sexual conflict over mating interactions, few are known for sexual conflict over parental investment. Here we investigate a possible coevolutionary sequence triggered by mate desertion in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, where males commonly leave before their offspring reach independence. Rather than suffer fitness costs as a consequence, our data suggest that females rely on the male's absence to recoup some of the costs of larval care, presumably because they are then free to feed themselves on the carcass employed for breeding. Consequently, forcing males to stay until the larvae disperse reduces components of female fitness to a greater extent than caring for young singlehandedly. Therefore we suggest that females may have co-evolved to anticipate desertion by their partners so that they now benefit from the male's absence.
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spelling pubmed-32802302012-02-21 Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment Boncoraglio, Giuseppe Kilner, Rebecca M. PLoS One Research Article Sexual conflict drives the coevolution of sexually antagonistic traits, such that an adaptation in one sex selects an opposing coevolutionary response from the other. Although many adaptations and counteradaptations have been identified in sexual conflict over mating interactions, few are known for sexual conflict over parental investment. Here we investigate a possible coevolutionary sequence triggered by mate desertion in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, where males commonly leave before their offspring reach independence. Rather than suffer fitness costs as a consequence, our data suggest that females rely on the male's absence to recoup some of the costs of larval care, presumably because they are then free to feed themselves on the carcass employed for breeding. Consequently, forcing males to stay until the larvae disperse reduces components of female fitness to a greater extent than caring for young singlehandedly. Therefore we suggest that females may have co-evolved to anticipate desertion by their partners so that they now benefit from the male's absence. Public Library of Science 2012-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3280230/ /pubmed/22355390 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031713 Text en Boncoraglio and Kilner. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This 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 properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Boncoraglio, Giuseppe
Kilner, Rebecca M.
Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment
title Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment
title_full Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment
title_fullStr Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment
title_full_unstemmed Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment
title_short Female Burying Beetles Benefit from Male Desertion: Sexual Conflict and Counter-Adaptation over Parental Investment
title_sort female burying beetles benefit from male desertion: sexual conflict and counter-adaptation over parental investment
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3280230/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22355390
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031713
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