Abstract Parental care has evolved multiple times in the animal kingdom and includes all parental traits that enhance offspring fitness. The evolution of care can lead to prolonged associations between parents and their offspring. This, in turn, can drive parent–offspring coevolution, creating systems in which multiple care behaviors are exhibited and potentially resulting in offspring becoming more dependent on parental care. Parental care often takes indirect forms, such as nest building, while direct care behaviors, like feeding, which involve physical interaction with offspring, are generally less frequent. However, in species where both types of care occur, the extent to which offspring rely on indirect versus direct care is often unknown. In this study, we investigated the roles and relative importance of direct and indirect care in a system where offspring are highly dependent on parental care. We conducted an experiment in which we manipulated the duration and composition of direct and indirect post-hatching care in the burying beetle Nicrophorus orbicollis. Burying beetles reproduce by exploiting small vertebrate carcasses, which they bury and convert into a nutritious nursery for their offspring. In addition to modifying the food resource, parents actively feed their offspring. We found that direct care had a greater effect on offspring growth and survival than indirect care, although indirect care also enhanced fitness. The greater reliance on feeding over indirect care is likely the result of sibling competition for food. Our study underscores the complexity and multi-layered nature of parental care strategies and their effects on offspring performance. Significance Statement Parental care enhances offspring fitness and can include both indirect care, like nest building, and direct care, like feeding. In systems where both care types occur, it is often unclear how much offspring rely on each type. As a model, we used Nicrophorus orbicollis burying beetles, which prepare a carcass as a nursery and regurgitate food to their offspring, to experimentally manipulate the duration and composition of direct and indirect care and assess their relative contributions to offspring survival and growth in this species. Our results show that while direct care has a stronger effect on offspring survival and growth, indirect care also provides measurable benefits. This study highlights the adaptive value of multi-component parental care strategies and the complex interactions between parents and offspring in species that depend heavily on parental care.

Abstract. Seasonal migration is performed by taxonomically diverse groups across the planet’s oceans and continents. Migration has been hypothesized to pro

Die EU-Kommission will Messenger-Dienste wie WhatsApp und Signal zwingen, alle privaten Nachrichten und Fotos in Echtzeit zu scannen. Angeblich zum Kinderschutz. In Wahrheit bedeutet die Chatkontrolle...

Genetically identical cells and organisms exhibit remarkable diversity even when they have identical histories of environmental exposure. Noise, or variation, in the process of gene expression may con...

SINGER is a method for creating ancestral recombination graphs to understand the genealogical history of genomes. The method has increased speed, and thus scalability, without sacrificing accuracy.

Birds have evolved a unique sex chromosome dosage compensation mechanism involving the male-biased microRNA (miR-2954), which is essential for male survival by regulating the expression of dosage-sens...

Squamellaria plants grow special structures to host the ants they symbiotically rely on for nutrients. Distinct compartments help different ant colonies live peacefully side by side.

Abstract. Bees are palynivorous insects that vary widely in the number of plant families from which they collect pollen. Their evolutionary history has bee

Many symbioses involve one host species having several mutualist partners, yet theory predicts that unrelated symbionts lead to destabilizing conflict through competition for host resources. We combin...

Abstract. Differential dispersion between the sexes can impact the colonization process and demographic history of a species. Here, we explored the demogra

We model natural selection for or against an anti-parasite (or anti-predator) defense allele in a host (or prey) population that is structured into ma…