Earwig mothers employ a suite of hygienic behaviors to defend their nest against microbial threats

Hygienic behavior is a key defense against pathogens in mammals and birds, yet it remains surprisingly understudied in insects outside eusocial species. This gap raises the questions of whether such behaviors are unique to eusocial insects or instead reflect widespread forms of social immunity that may have shaped the evolution of insect sociality. Here, we investigated hygienic behavior in the European earwig, a non-eusocial insect exhibiting maternal egg care. First, we exposed pre-ovipositing females and males to organic (microbial risk) and plastic items, and found that only females selectively covered organic items, starting at oviposition. We then introduced either an organic item, an organic item with pathogen spores, a plastic item, or no item into female nests post-oviposition. Mothers continued to cover organic items and consistently relocated their eggs away from them, regardless of the presence of pathogen spores. Nest architecture remained unaffected by item type. Altogethe..., , # Earwig mothers employ a suite of hygienic behaviors to defend their nest against microbial threats

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.ksn02v7jb](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ksn02v7jb)

## Description of the data and file structure

The data is composed of two CSV files: DataBefore.csv and DataAfter.csv, containing respectively the data before oviposition and after oviposition.

### Files and variables

#### File: DataAfter.csv

##### Variables

* ID: Identification of the individual
* Treatment: The nature of the item (Food, Metarhizium: Food + Metarhizium brunneum, Plastic, Control: No item)
* Date_laying_J: The number of days between the first oviposition observed among the females of the experiment and the oviposition of the current individual
* Nb_eggs: Number of eggs laid by the individual
* Date_eclosion_J: Number of days between eclosion and oviposition of the clutch
* nb.day.hatching: Calendar hatching timing: Number of days between eclosion and oviposition of the first clutch of ...,