Parental investment and immune dynamics in sex-role reversed pipefishes.

ABSTRACT: Parental care elevates reproductive success by allocating resources into the upbringing of the offspring. However, it also imposes strong costs for the care-giving parent and can foster sexual dimorphism. Trade-offs between the reproductive system and the immune system may result in differential immunological capacities between the care-providing and the non-care-providing parent. Usually, providing care is restricted to the female sex making it impossible to study a sex-independent influence of parental investment on sexual immune dimorphism. The decoupling of sex-dependent parental investment and their influences on the parental immunological capacity, however, is possible in syngnathids, which evolved the unique male pregnancy on a gradient ranging from a simple carrying of eggs on the

SUBMITTER: Keller IS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7518610 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature