Carcass size, not source or taxon, dictates breeding performance and carcass use in a burying beetle.

Abstract

Small vertebrate carcasses represent critical resources for many terrestrial organisms, including burying beetles, which rely on carcasses for survival and breeding. Carcass attributes can influence the reproduction of burying beetles, yet most studies on their breeding ecology have used laboratory-reared carcasses of limited sizes. We conducted breeding and feeding experiments using a wide size range of lab (laboratory mice) and wild carcasses (wild mammals, birds and reptiles) to investigate how carcass size, source and taxon affect various breeding outcomes (e.g. clutch size, brood size and brood mass) of the burying beetle Nicrophorus nepalensis. Our results reveal a hump-shaped relationship between carcass size and breeding performance, with optimal breeding outcomes occurring on medium-sized carcasses. Furthermore, despite the variation in carcass tissue nutritional composition, breeding outcomes and larval growth did not differ between the two carcass sources or among the three wild carcass taxa. Finally, we found a larval quality-quantity trade-off across the range of carcasses examined, with carcass size shaping the larval life-history traits. Overall, these results elucidate how carcass resources may influence the breeding performance of burying beetles. Importantly, our study provides solid evidence validating decades of research using lab carcasses to study the reproductive ecology of burying beetles.