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Macroecology of parental care in arthropods: higher mortality risk leads to higher benefits of offspring protection in tropical climates
Authors:Eduardo S A Santos  Pedro P Bueno  James D J Gilbert  Glauco Machado
Institution:1. LAGE do Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de S?o Paulo, S?o Paulo, Brazil;2. BECO do Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de S?o Paulo, S?o Paulo, Brazil;3. School of Environmental Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, U.K.
Abstract:The intensity of biotic interactions varies around the world, in such a way that mortality risk imposed by natural enemies is usually higher in the tropics. A major role of offspring attendance is protection against natural enemies, so the benefits of this behaviour should be higher in tropical regions. We tested this macroecological prediction with a meta‐regression of field experiments in which the mortality of guarded and unguarded broods was compared in arthropods. Mortality of unguarded broods was higher, and parental care was more beneficial, in warmer, less seasonal environments. Moreover, in these same environments, additional lines of defence further reduced offspring mortality, implying that offspring attendance alone is not enough to deter natural enemies in tropical regions. These results help to explain the high frequency of parental care among tropical species and how biotic interactions influence the occurrence of parental care over large geographic scales. Finally, our findings reveal that additional lines of defences – an oftentimes neglected component of parental care – have an important effect on the covariation between the benefits of parental care and the climate‐mediated mortality risk imposed by natural enemies.
Keywords:abiotic factors  biotic interactions  evapotranspiration  egg attendance  egg coating  meta‐regression  nest  parasitism  parental removal  predation
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