Gene expression underlying parenting and being parented shows limited plasticity in response to different ambient temperatures

Flexible interactions between parents and offspring are essential for buffering families against variable, unpredictable, and challenging environmental conditions. In the subsocial carrion beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis, mid-summer temperatures impose steep fitness costs on parents and offspring but do not elicit behavioral plasticity in parents. Here, we ask if plasticity of gene expression underpins this behavioral stability or facilitates independent compensation by larvae. To test this, we characterized gene expression of parents and offspring before and during active parenting under benign (20°C) and stressful (24°C) temperatures to identify genes of parents and offspring associated with thermal response, parenting/being parented, and gene expression plasticity associated with behavioral stability of parental care. The main effects of thermal and social condition each shaped patterns of gene expression in females, males, and larvae. In addition, we implicated 79 genes in females as...