TY - JOUR
A2 - Rodriguez-Saona, Cesar
AU - Smith, Ashlee N.
AU - Belk, Mark C.
PY - 2018
DA - 2018/03/05
TI - Evidence for Interspecific Brood Parasite Detection and Removal in Burying Beetles
SP - 2712945
VL - 2018
AB - We tested whether brood parasitism could be successful between two co-occurring species of burying beetles, Nicrophorus guttula and Nicrophorus marginatus, and whether these species exhibit an adaptive response to brood parasitism by detecting and removing parasites. We cross-fostered larvae between broods of the two species and created mixed-species broods to simulate the addition of brood parasites. Brood parasites survived in both species’ broods. Nicrophorus marginatus culled 86% of brood parasites compared to 56% of their own larvae, and N. guttula culled 50% of brood parasites compared to 22% of their own larvae. Additionally, N. guttula brood parasites were significantly smaller than N. guttula that were raised by N. guttula parents, but N. marginatus brood parasites were significantly larger than N. marginatus that were raised by N. marginatus parents. This paper provides the first evidence that burying beetles can discriminate between their own larvae and other species’ larvae. We suggest that brood parasitism may be the selective force responsible for this ability.
SN - 0033-2615
UR - https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/2712945
DO - 10.1155/2018/2712945
JF - Psyche
PB - Hindawi
KW -
ER -