Pilakouta, N. , Hanlon, E. J.H. and Smiseth, P. T. (2018) Biparental care is more than the sum of its parts: experimental evidence for synergistic effects on offspring fitness. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences, 285(1884), 20180875. (doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.0875) (PMID:30068674) (PMCID:PMC6111165)
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Abstract
Despite an extensive body of theoretical and empirical literature on biparental cooperation, it is still unclear whether offspring fare equally, better or worse when receiving care by two parents versus a single parent. Some models predict that parents should withhold the amount of care they provide due to sexual conflict, thereby shifting as much of the workload as possible to their partner. This conflict should lead to offspring faring worse with two parents. Yet, other models predict that when parents care for their offspring together, their individual contributions can have synergistic (more than additive) effects on offspring fitness. Under this scenario, biparental cooperation should lead to offspring faring better with two parents. We address this fundamental question using a unique experimental design where we compared offspring fitness when the two parents worked together (biparental treatment) and when they worked separately (uniparental treatment), while keeping constant the amount of resources and number of offspring per parent across treatments. This made it possible to directly compare the biparental treatment to the sum of the male and female contributions in the uniparental treatment. Our main finding was that offspring grew larger and were more likely to survive to adulthood when reared by both parents than a single parent. This is the first empirical evidence for a synergistic effect of biparental cooperation on offspring fitness and could provide novel insights into the conditions favouring the evolution of biparental cooperation.
| Item Type: | Articles |
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| Additional Information: | The study was funded by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Edinburgh. |
| Keywords: | Nicrophorus vespilloides, burying beetle, complementarity, cooperation, parental care, sexual conflict. |
| Status: | Published |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Pilakouta, Dr Natalie |
| Authors: | Pilakouta, N., Hanlon, E. J.H., and Smiseth, P. T. |
| College/School: | College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine |
| Journal Name: | Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences |
| Publisher: | The Royal Society |
| ISSN: | 0962-8452 |
| ISSN (Online): | 1471-2954 |
| Published Online: | 01 August 2018 |
| Copyright Holders: | Copyright © 2018 The Authors |
| First Published: | First published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences 285(1884): 20180875 |
| Publisher Policy: | Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy |
| Related URLs: | |
| Data DOI: | 10.5061/dryad.s7n04j8 |
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