A Parental Volatile Pheromone Triggers Offspring Begging in a Burying Beetle

Mamoru Takata; Yuki Mitaka; Sandra Steiger; Naoki Mori

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2019.06.041

A Parental Volatile Pheromone Triggers Offspring Begging in a Burying Beetle

iScience. 2019 Sep 27:19:1260-1278. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.06.041. Epub 2019 Sep 11.

Authors

Mamoru Takata¹, Yuki Mitaka², Sandra Steiger³, Naoki Mori⁴

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University Kitashirakawa-Oiwake-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan. Electronic address: mamorururu2000@gmail.com.
² Applied Entomology Laboratory, Department of Bioresource Field Sciences, Kyoto Institute of Technology, 1 Saga-ippongi-cho, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto 616-8354, Japan.
³ Department of Evolutionary Animal Ecology, University of Bayreuth, Universitätstraße 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany.
⁴ Laboratory of Chemical Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa-Oiwake-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.

Abstract

Parental care is a notable aspect of reproductive effort in many animals. The interaction between offspring begging and the parental feeding response is an important communication mechanism that regulates offspring food supply, and reducing the cost of superfluous begging is beneficial to both parents and offspring. Here we concluded that parents of the burying beetle Nicrophorus quadripunctatus inform their offspring of their preparation for provisioning by emitting "provisioning pheromone." Female parents emitted an antimicrobial aromatic compound, 2-phenoxyethanol, in their regurgitation before provisioning, and this compound elicits begging behavior from their offspring. Furthermore, begging incurs growth and survival costs, and parents spent more than 85% of their time in close proximity to their offspring without provisioning. Therefore, it is suggested that limiting offspring begging during provisioning is beneficial to both parents and offspring. We report here a novel aspect of parent-offspring communication in family life.

Keywords: Biological Sciences; Ecology; Ethology.