Highlights•Eusociality evolved multiple times in insects, either via the brood care or the nest
defense route.•There are several confounding factors in molecular studies of brood care or …

Among the multiple strategies that males and females can adopt to ensure the proper
development of their offspring, an important one is the expression of parental care …

Through the effort required to construct them, the microenvironmental conditions they
impose on the family and their indirect influence on posthatching care, nests play a key role …

Differential gene expression has been associated with transitions between behavioral states
for a wide variety of organisms and behaviors. Heterochrony, genetic toolkits, and …

Flexible interactions between parents and offspring are essential for buffering families
against variable, unpredictable, and challenging environmental conditions. In the subsocial …

Parental investment is any expenditure of time or energy by parents that increases their
offspring survival at the cost of future reproduction. The costs associated with parental …

Parental care patterns increase offspring fitness but may drive energetic costs to parents.
The costs associated with parental care can change over time, decreasing the condition of …

Highlights•We studied offspring begging towards male and female parents in a burying
beetle.•We also manipulated male presence or absence during egg laying.•Larvae begged …

Organisms are continuously interacting using a diverse array of mechanisms, some of them
very evident, others subtle, to obtain the resources needed for reproduction. Sexual …

Parenting buffers offspring from hostile environments, but it is not clear how or if the genes
that underlie parenting change their expression under environmental stress. We recently …