Mother and offspring fitness in an insect with maternal care: phenotypic trade-offs between egg number, egg mass and egg care.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Oviparous females have three main options to increase their reproductive success: investing into egg number, egg mass and/or egg care. Although allocating resources to either of these three components is known to shape offspring number and size, potential trade-offs among them may have key impacts on maternal and offspring fitness. Here, we tested the occurrence of phenotypic trade-offs between egg number, egg mass and maternal expenditure on egg care in the European earwig, Forficula auricularia, an insect with pre- and post-hatching forms of maternal care. In particular, we used a series of laboratory observations and experiments to investigate whether these three components non-additively influenced offspring weight and number at hatching, and whether they were associ

SUBMITTER: Koch LK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4061511 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature