Biology:Burying beetle

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Short description: Genus of beetles

Burying beetle
Temporal range: Cenomanian–Recent
Amerikanischer Totengräber (Nicrophorus americanus).jpg
American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus)
Scientific classification e
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Silphidae
Subfamily: Nicrophorinae
Tribe: Nicrophorini
Genus: Nicrophorus
Fabricius, 1775
Type species
Silpha vespillo
Synonyms[1]

Burying beetles or sexton beetles, genus Nicrophorus, are the best-known members of the family Silphidae (carrion beetles). Most of these beetles are black with red markings on the elytra (forewings). Burying beetles are true to their name—they bury the carcasses of small vertebrates such as birds and rodents as a food source for their larvae, this makes them carnivorous.[2] They are unusual among insects in that both the male and female parents take care of the brood.[3]

The genus name is sometimes spelled Necrophorus in older texts: this was an unjustified emendation by Carl Peter Thunberg (1789) of Fabricius's original name, and is not valid under the ICZN.

The American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) has been on the U.S. endangered species list since 1989. This species was native to 35 U.S. states but now is only known to exist in 9.[4]

Reproduction

Burying beetles have large club-like antennae equipped with chemoreceptors capable of detecting a dead animal from a long distance.[5] After finding a carcass (most usually that of a small bird or a mouse), beetles fight amongst themselves (males fighting males, females fighting females) until the winning pair (usually the largest) remains. If a lone beetle finds a carcass, it can continue alone and await a partner. Single males attract mates by releasing a pheromone from the tip of their abdomens. Females can raise a brood alone, fertilizing her eggs using sperm stored from previous copulations.[6] The carcass must be buried by the beetle(s) to get it out of the way of potential competitors, which are numerous.

Burying beetle life cycle

The prospective parents begin to dig a hole below the carcass. While doing so, and after removing all hair from the carcass, the beetles cover the animal with antibacterial and antifungal oral and anal secretions, slowing the decay of the carcass and preventing the smell of rotting flesh from attracting competition.[2] The carcass is formed into a ball and the fur or feathers stripped away and used to line and reinforce the crypt, also known as a nursery, where the carcass will remain until the flesh has been completely consumed.[7] The burial process can take around 8 hours. Several pairs of beetles may cooperate to bury large carcasses and then raise their broods communally.[8]

The female burying beetle lays eggs in the soil around the crypt.[9] The larvae hatch after a few days and move into a pit in the carcass which the parents have created. Although the larvae are able to feed themselves, both parents also feed the larvae in response to begging: they digest the flesh and regurgitate liquid food for the larvae to feed on, a form of progressive provisioning.[7] This probably speeds up larval development.[10] It is also thought the parent beetles can produce secretions from head glands that have anti-microbial activity, inhibiting the growth of bacteria and fungi on the vertebrate corpse.[11]

The adult beetles continue to protect the larvae, which take several days to mature. Many competitors make this task difficult, e.g. bluebottles and ants or burying beetles of either another or the same species.[12] Throughout the entirety of the larva's development, the parents fight off these competitors all the while maintaining an ideal nursery inside the carcass for their offspring.[6] The final-stage larvae migrate into the soil and pupate, transforming from small white larvae to fully formed adult beetles.[2]

Aside from eusocial species such as ants and honey bees, parental care, particularly biparental care, is quite rare among insects, and burying beetles are remarkable exceptions.[7]

Infanticide

Burying beetles are known to commit infanticide at an early stage, which is also known as culling their young. This infanticide functions to match the number of larvae to the size of the carcass so that there is enough food to go around.[13] If there are too many young, they will all be underfed and will develop less quickly, reducing their chances of surviving to adulthood. If there are too few young, the resulting adult beetles will be large but the parents could have produced more of them.[3] The most successful beetle parents will achieve a good balance between the size of offspring and the number produced. This unusual method of brood size regulation might be the result of the eggs being laid before the female has been able to gauge the size of the carcass and hence how many larvae it can provision.[13]

Conservation

As of 2020, the American burying beetle (N. americanus) was reclassified from the endangered category to threatened by the Fish and Wildlife Service.[4] Burying beetles are important to the ecosystem and aid in nutrient recycling by burying dead animals. This allows for the nutrient rich carcass to be recycled by the system.[14]

Species

N. germanicus
N. humator
N. investigator
N. vespillo
N. vespilloides
N. vestigator

(As of 2006) there are over 60 valid, extant species in the genus Nicrophorus although a few undescribed species and synonyms remain to be worked up.


Fossils

A fossil of N. humator dating around 10,500 years was reported in 1962 by Pearson.[17] An extinct unnamed member of the genus is known from the Late Cretaceous Cenomanian aged Burmese amber of Myanmar, around 99 million years old.[18][19]

References

  1. ↑ GBIF: Nicrophorus Fabricius, 1775 (retrieved 13 January 2020)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Scott, Michelle Pellissier (January 1998). "THE ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR OF BURYING BEETLES". Annual Review of Entomology 43 (1): 595–618. doi:10.1146/annurev.ento.43.1.595. ISSN 0066-4170. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Trumbo, Stephen T. (1990). "Reproductive Benefits of Infanticide in a Biparental Burying Beetle Nicrophorus orbicollis". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 27 (4): 269–273. ISSN 0340-5443. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Federal Register :: Request Access". https://unblock.federalregister.gov/. [full citation needed]
  5. ↑ Canada, Environment and Climate Change (2012-10-10). "American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus): COSEWIC assessment and status report 2011". https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cosewic-assessments-status-reports/american-burying-beetle-2011.html. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Benowitz, Kyle M.; Moore, Allen J. (December 2016). "Biparental care is predominant and beneficial to parents in the burying beetle Nicrophorus orbicollis (Coleoptera: Silphidae)". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 119 (4): 1082–1088. doi:10.1111/bij.12830. PMID 28025585. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Smiseth, P. T. (July 2004). "Behavioral dynamics between caring males and females in a beetle with facultative biparental care". Behavioral Ecology 15 (4): 621–628. doi:10.1093/beheco/arh053. ISSN 1465-7279. 
  8. ↑ Muller, J. K. (March 2003). "Nestmate recognition in burying beetles: the "breeder's badge" as a cue used by females to distinguish their mates from male intruders". Behavioral Ecology 14 (2): 212–220. doi:10.1093/beheco/14.2.212. ISSN 1465-7279. 
  9. ↑ Canada, Environment and Climate Change (2012-10-10). "American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus): COSEWIC assessment and status report 2011". https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cosewic-assessments-status-reports/american-burying-beetle-2011.html. 
  10. ↑ EGGERT, ANNE-KATRIN; REINKING, MARTINA; MÜLLER, JOSEF K (January 1998). "Parental care improves offspring survival and growth in burying beetles". Animal Behaviour 55 (1): 97–107. doi:10.1006/anbe.1997.0588. ISSN 0003-3472. 
  11. ↑ Duarte, Ana; Rebar, Darren; Hallett, Allysa C.; Jarrett, Benjamin J. M.; Kilner, Rebecca M. (2021-11-24). "Evolutionary change in the construction of the nursery environment when parents are prevented from caring for their young directly". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (48). doi:10.1073/pnas.2102450118. ISSN 0027-8424. 
  12. ↑ Trumbo, Stephen T.; Valletta, Richard C. (April 2007). "The Costs of Confronting Infanticidal Intruders in a Burying Beetle". Ethology 113 (4): 386–393. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.2006.01326.x. ISSN 0179-1613. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Bartlett, J. (September 1987). "Filial cannibalism in burying beetles". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 21 (3): 179–183. doi:10.1007/bf00303208. ISSN 0340-5443. 
  14. ↑ "This Beetle Lays its Eggs in Dead Mice Carcasses and then Covers Them With Mucus – But it’s Endangered and Important". 2018-09-05. https://blog.ucsusa.org/jacob-carter/the-american-burying-beetle-is-in-trouble/. 
  15. ↑ "A Bit of Good Luck: A New Species of Burying Beetle from the Solomon Islands Archipelago". June 21, 2013. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130621104402.htm. 
  16. ↑ Sikes D, Trumbo ST, Peck SB (2016) Cryptic diversity in the New World burying beetle fauna: Nicrophorus hebes Kirby - new status as a resurrected name (Coleoptera: Silphidae: Nicrophorinae). Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny 74(3): 299-309
  17. ↑ Sikes, Derek S.; Madge, Ronald B.; Newton, Alfred F. (August 29, 2002). "A catalog of the Nicrophorinae (Coleoptera: Silphidae) of the world". Zootaxa 65 (1): 1–304. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.65.1.1. http://collections2.eeb.uconn.edu/nicroweb/PDFs/Sikes_et_al_2002.pdf. 
  18. ↑ Cai, Chen-Yang; Thayer, Margaret K.; Engel, Michael S.; Newton, Alfred F.; Ortega-Blanco, Jaime; Wang, Bo; Wang, Xiang-Dong; Huang, Di-Ying (2014-09-30). "Early origin of parental care in Mesozoic carrion beetles". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (39): 14170–14174. doi:10.1073/pnas.1412280111. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 25225362. 
  19. ↑ Toussaint, Emmanuel F. A.; Condamine, Fabien L. (April 2016). "To what extent do new fossil discoveries change our understanding of clade evolution? A cautionary tale from burying beetles (Coleoptera: Nicrophorus)". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 117 (4): 686–704. doi:10.1111/bij.12710. 

External links

Wikidata ☰ Q589455 entry



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