Shifts in sex-specific immune gene expression in a beetle with parental care.

ABSTRACT: Males and females generally differ in resource investment strategies in order to maximise reproductive output. These strategies involve the control of important systemic processes such as self-maintenance and immune activity, which in turn could be traded-off against aspects of reproduction in a sex-specific manner. While some aspects of this immunomodulation have been previously shown in domestic animals, sex-specific immune modulation using repeated sampling over the breeding period has rarely been tested in the wild. Here we used Lethrus apterus, a sexually dimorphic beetle with parental care, to investigate the association between sex roles (e.g. offspring provisioning) and sex-specific immune gene expression. By determining the immune gene activation of males and females at five succe

SUBMITTER: Nagy NA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11954957 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature