Partner cues and individual variation underlie sex-reversed parental care in poison frogs

Flexible parental care strategies are widespread in nature and factor into conflict between the sexes and the realization of sex roles. While adaptive explanations abound, the mechanisms underlying flexible ‘sex-reversal’ of care are less clear. We enlist a biparental frog (Ranitomeya imitator) with flexible parental care to investigate the extrinsic and intrinsic mechanisms underpinning parental decisions. Using mate removal experiments in the laboratory, we show that members of the primary caregiving sex (males) show less variation than the flexible sex (females) in their propensity to provide care, and that care propensity in females is affected by extrinsic partner cues as well as individual variability. Indeed, individual repeatability in parental effort is high in both typically caregiving and flexible parents. To investigate the underpinnings of differences in care propensity, we sequenced RNA from whole brains of caregiving and non-caregiving frogs of both sexes. While actively ..., , # Data from: Partner cues and individual variation underlie sex-reversed parental care in poison frogs

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m9p](10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m9p)

## Description of the data and file structure

# Partner cues and individual variation underlie sex-reversed parental care in poison frogs

---

This dataset contains all raw video/audio scoring tabulations, gene count and annotation data, and relevant trial and sampling information used in the characterization of parental behaviors and associated gene expression profiles of *Ranitomeya imitator*, contextualized in experimental procedures and results. Nine files (described in detail in Files/Variables) collectively serve as inputs for three scripts, Behavioral\_Analysis\_Moss\_et\_al\_PROC\_B.R, Hormone\_Analysis\_Moss\_et\_al\_PROC\_B.R, and Gene\_Expression\_Analysis\_Moss\_et\_al\_PROC\_B.R, which include all data visualizations and statistical analyses presented in the manuscript.

### Files and variables

#### File:...,

灵活的亲本抚育策略在自然界中广泛存在，且是两性冲突与性别角色实现的重要影响因素。尽管现有适应性解释层出不穷，但抚育行为的灵活性别反转背后的具体机制仍不甚明晰。本研究选取具有灵活亲本抚育行为的双亲抚育蛙类——模仿箭毒蛙（Ranitomeya imitator）为研究对象，旨在解析调控亲本抚育决策的外在与内在机制。通过实验室中的配偶移除实验，我们发现：主要承担抚育职责的性别（雄性）在抚育倾向方面的变异程度低于灵活抚育性别（雌性）；雌性的抚育倾向同时受到外在配偶线索与个体差异的影响。此外，无论是典型抚育亲本还是灵活抚育亲本，其亲本投入的个体重复性均较高。为探究抚育倾向差异的内在机制，我们对两性抚育与非抚育个体的全脑组织进行了RNA测序。尽管……

# 数据来源：配偶线索与个体差异是箭毒蛙性别反转亲本抚育的基础
数据集DOI：10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m9p

## 数据与文件结构说明
# 配偶线索与个体差异是箭毒蛙性别反转亲本抚育的基础

---

本数据集包含所有用于表征模仿箭毒蛙（Ranitomeya imitator）亲本行为及相关基因表达谱的原始音视频评分统计表、基因计数与注释数据，以及相关实验与采样信息，所有数据均结合实验流程与研究结果进行了整理。本数据集共包含9个文件（详细说明见「文件与变量」部分），可作为3个R脚本的输入数据，这3个脚本分别为Behavioral_Analysis_Moss_et_al_PROC_B.R、Hormone_Analysis_Moss_et_al_PROC_B.R与Gene_Expression_Analysis_Moss_et_al_PROC_B.R，用于完成论文中呈现的全部数据可视化与统计分析工作。

### 文件与变量

#### 文件：……