In This Issue

Male and female parents in many animal species resort to a range of strategies to shift parental duties to each other, minimizing personal workload at the expense of partners. In theory, females can influence offspring growth and behavior through molecular mechanisms triggered during egg production. Hence, Matthieu Paquet and Per Smiseth (pp. 6800– 6805) tested whether female burying beetles (Nicrophorus vespilloides) exercise their maternal prerogative to alter prenatal investment in offspring, manipulating males into shouldering a greater proportion of offspring care. Hatchling larvae from lab-reared female beetles that laid eggs when males were present were 3.4% lighter than larvae from females that laid eggs when males were absent, suggesting that females curtail prenatal investment in anticipation of postnatal offspring care from male partners. However, male beetles appeared largely indifferent to the seeming female subterfuge, providing a similar level of offspring care after egg hatching under both conditions. Nonetheless, female manipulation appeared effective in reducing male partners’ consumption of a food source shared with females and offspring during care; males consumed less carrion while caring for broods laid when males were present, potentially allowing such larvae to compensate for their relatively low birth weight. According to the authors, prenatal manipulation by female beetles might influence caregiving male partners’ food consumption. — P.N.