Age interactions influence biparental care behavior and reproductive success

Prolonged reproductive interactions can lead to social plasticity and fitness differences for a focal individual in response to their partner’s characteristics. Age can provide a way to manipulate the influence of a social partner due to its predictable consequences for mate quality and reproductive effort. Here, we use a full factorial design to examine the interactions between male and female age on behavior and reproductive performance in the obligately caring, frequently biparental burying beetle Nicrophorus orbicollis. We found that both males and females increased their reproductive effort with age. However, this response was weaker than that of a related, more uniparental species that provides facultative care, indicating that details of age-related behavior are predictable based on species differences. We also found that male and female behavior depended on both their own and their partner’s age, as well as their partner’s behavior. Lastly, we found that mismatched age pairs had..., , , # Data from: Age interactions influence biparental care behavior and reproductive success

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0gb5mkmbj](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0gb5mkmbj)

## Description of the data and file structure

This dataset presents measures of parental care behavior and brood success in burying beetle (*Nicrophorus orbicollis*) pairs as a function of male age, female age, and their interaction.

### Files and variables

Data is a comma-separated file wherein each row represents a single breeding pair of burying beetles. NA: Not applicable

| Brood ID | ID given to each family in the experiment |
| :----------------------------------------------------- | :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...