| dc.description.abstract | The burying beetle (Nicrophorus vespilloides) has unusually highly developed parental
care; parents prepare and maintain a food resource (thereby providing indirect parental
care), feed through direct provisioning by regurgitation, and protect their larvae. Parental
care is highly variable and can be uniparental female care, uniparental male care, or
biparental. There are genetic components to the parenting behaviour of the burying beetle,
the amount of direct and indirect care given, and the size of the brood are heritable and
therefore genetic traits.
In this thesis I have focused on two candidate genes that I predicted would influence
parental care behaviour. The first is foraging, which has been shown to influence a range
of social and reproductive behaviours in other insect species. Using QRTPCR and
pharmacological manipulations I have investigated the role of Nvfor in adult and juvenile
burying beetles. The second gene is inotocin, the insect orthologue of oxytocin. Oxytocin
has been shown to influence social behaviour as well as many behaviours associated with
reproduction in vertebrates and invertebrates, however the effects of inotocin have not yet
been investigated in insects. I have used pharmacological manipulations to investigate the
role of inotocin in parental behaviour in female burying beetles.
Collectively my results demonstrate the central role of Nvfor in the control of direct
parental care and the association with major behavioural changes in both adult and larval
burying beetles. I have also demonstrated the possible involvement of oxytocin in the
control of aggression towards conspecific larvae. These insights suggest the controlling
mechanism for the behavioural changes seen in burying beetles is complex and involves
interactions between many genes. Combined with previous research on these genes, it is
clear they are key components in the evolution of sociality. Finally, my research indicates
the power of the candidate gene approach, and suggests additional components of the
related pathways that could be investigated. | en_GB |
