Food-deprivation affects egg laying and maternal care but not offspring performance in a beetle

Individuals vary with respect to their nutritional state and such variation is an important determinant of the amount of resources individuals allocate towards reproductive functions. Currently, we have a relatively poor understanding of the downstream consequences of food deprivation on different traits associated with reproduction. Here, we address this gap by investigating how food deprivation affected different traits across the breeding cycle in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides; a species that breeds on carcasses of small vertebrates serving as food for both parents and offspring. We found that food-deprived females took longer to start egg laying than control females, which may allow them more time to feed from the carcass. There was no difference between food-deprived and control females in the number, size, laying pattern or hatching success of eggs, suggesting that this delay allowed females to compensate for their poor initial state. However, food-deprived females ...