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(Reference retrieved automatically from Web of Science through information on FAPESP grant and its corresponding number as mentioned in the publication by the authors.)

Paternal Care Decreases Foraging Activity and Body Condition, but Does Not Impose Survival Costs to Caring Males in a Neotropical Arachnid

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Author(s):
Requena, Gustavo S. [1] ; Buzatto, Bruno A. [2] ; Martins, Eduardo G. [3, 4, 5] ; Machado, Glauco [1]
Total Authors: 4
Affiliation:
[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Ecol, Inst Biociencias, Sao Paulo - Brazil
[2] Univ Western Australia, Ctr Evolutionary Biol, Sch Anim Biol, Crawley, WA - Australia
[3] Univ British Columbia, Dept Forest Sci, Ctr Appl Conservat Res, Vancouver, BC V6T 1W5 - Canada
[4] Carleton Univ, Inst Environm Sci, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 - Canada
[5] Carleton Univ, Dept Biol, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 - Canada
Total Affiliations: 5
Document type: Journal article
Source: PLoS One; v. 7, n. 10 OCT 10 2012.
Web of Science Citations: 18
Abstract

Exclusive paternal care is the rarest form of parental investment in nature and theory predicts that the maintenance of this behavior depends on the balance between costs and benefits to males. Our goal was to assess costs of paternal care in the harvestman Iporangaia pustulosa, for which the benefits of this behavior in terms of egg survival have already been demonstrated. We evaluated energetic costs and mortality risks associated to paternal egg-guarding in the field. We quantified foraging activity of males and estimated how their body condition is influenced by the duration of the caring period. Additionally, we conducted a one-year capture-mark-recapture study and estimated apparent survival probabilities of caring and non-caring males to assess potential survival costs of paternal care. Our results indicate that caring males forage less frequently than non-caring individuals (males and females) and that their body condition deteriorates over the course of the caring period. Thus, males willing to guard eggs may provide to females a fitness-enhancing gift of cost-free care of their offspring. Caring males, however, did not show lower survival probabilities when compared to both non-caring males and females. Reduction in mortality risks as a result of remaining stationary, combined with the benefits of improving egg survival, may have played an important and previously unsuspected role favoring the evolution of paternal care. Moreover, males exhibiting paternal care could also provide an honest signal of their quality as offspring defenders, and thus female preference for caring males could be responsible for maintaining the trait. (AU)

FAPESP's process: 08/50466-8 - Factors influencing the reproductive success of males with paternal care in arthropods
Grantee:Gustavo Requena Santos
Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate