Transcriptomes underlying behavioral variation in burying beetles

Burying beetles (Nicrophorus) provide advanced parental care to their offspring through the regurgitation of carrion. Here, we used RNA-seq to understand the transcriptomic differences between individual parents providing high amounts of parental care versus low amounts of parental care. We performed this comparison separately in males and females of two species, N. vespilloides and N. orbicollis. We also sequenced and assembled the genome of N. orbicollis to facilitate comparison between species. Our results provide valuable information on how organisms generate variation in complex traits.