PhD defence Donghui Ma
| When: | Fr 24-10-2025 at 11:00 |
| Where: | Academy Building & online |
Behavioural and social plasticity as mechanisms to cope with a changing world
A study on burying beetles
Plasticity in parental care may play a critical role in population resilience to novel challenges associated with rapid climate change. Such plasticity can buffer vulnerable offspring against environmental variability, improving their survival, development, and future reproductive potential, but also aids parents by optimising trade-offs, enhancing personal survival during environmental stress while investing in reproduction when conditions improve. In this thesis, I tested parental care plasticity and its fitness consequences in response to variable environments using the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. Chapter 2 investigated the sex-specific adjustments in parental care shaped by resource availability and competitive pressures. I found that males maintained care levels on small carcasses (vs. large carcasses), whereas females increased care. Both sexes elevated care under intraspecific competition but reduced care under interspecific competition. Chapter 3 demonstrated sex-specific and stage-dependent plasticity in parental care responding to temperatures and carcass-preparation investment. Specifically, males reduced pre-hatching care when carcass-preparation investment was reduced, regardless of temperatures. Moreover, both sexes decreased post-hatching care at 23 ℃ compared to 20 ℃. Chapter 4 showed that temperature variation shapes reproductive allocation in parental care and reproductive success across consecutive breeding bouts. Critically, these thermally mediated shifts were modulated by breeders’ prior reproductive experiences. Chapter 5 found that sociality partially buffers the negative impacts of harsh temperatures on reproduction and offspring development. This thesis combines experimental ecology and evolutionary theory to dissect the adaptive plasticity of parental care in a changing world, offering insights into how animals respond to increasing environmental variability.