The role of vibrational and airborne communication in the evolution of parental care in burying beetles

家庭生活被认为是从孤独生活到社交生活和幸福生活的“重大进化转变”的第一步。在家庭生活中，沟通是关键--动物必须认识伴侣，并能够评估他们的可信度和能力。它们还需要协调与伴侣和后代的实际互动。所有这些都是通过某种形式的交流来实现的，无论是声学的、振动的、化学的还是视觉的。“社会复杂性假说”指出，在拥有复杂社会系统的群体中，通信系统应该更加复杂。埋葬甲虫(夜蛾属)表现出相当复杂的家庭生活，伴侣之间以及他们的后代之间有许多互动。然而，尽管达尔文已经提到了夜蛾的发声器官，但到目前为止，绝大多数的研究都集中在用于交流的化学信号上，而化学和声学成分的组合等多模式信号还没有被研究过。声音，可能还有振动，是由埋葬甲虫在各种不同的情况下产生的--在与竞争对手和捕食者的互动中，在埋葬时，在幼虫进食期间，在雄性和雌性的相遇中，然而到目前为止，这些信号的具体功能尚不清楚。这个项目的目的是研究埋葬甲虫时的空气传播和振动信号，以帮助我们对复杂社会行为中的交流及其在父母照料演变中的作用有全面的理解。我们将研究在不同的社会环境中使用的不同的空气传播和振动信号，以及它们的特定功能。此外，我们将调查是否需要这两个渠道进行通信。在该项目的下一部分，我们将使用比较的方法来调查沟通在父母照料演变中的作用。这将有助于我们洞察社会复杂性假说所提出的沟通和社会性可能的共同进化。接下来，我们计划观察不同物种的发音器官的形态，以及这与产生的信号的特征之间的关系。最后，我们将调查发声信号是否被用作多模式通信系统的一部分。因此，这项研究将首次深入了解空气传播和底物传播的振动信号在不同物种的社会行为背景下的使用情况，并将澄清这些信号是如何发出的。对沟通、社会行为和父母关怀的综合分析将为我们提供对社会复杂性假说的新见解，并通过这一假说让我们对沟通的演变有更深的理解。

Family life is thought to be the first step in the ‘major evolutionary transition’ from solitary to social life and eusociality. In family life communication is key - animals have to recognize a partner and be able to evaluate their trustworthiness and capabilities. They also need to coordinate their actual interactions with their partner and their offspring. All of these are accomplished by some form of communication, be it acoustic, vibrational, chemical or visual. The ‘social complexity hypothesis’ states that communication systems should be more complex in groups with complex social systems. Burying beetles (genus Nicrophorus) exhibit a rather complex family life with numerous interactions between partners as well as their offspring. However, even though Darwin already mentioned the stridulatory organ in Nicrophorus, the vast majority of the studies to date have focused on chemical signals for communication, and multimodal signals such as combinations of chemical and acoustic components haven’t been studied at all.Sound, and probably vibrations, are produced by burying beetles in various different situations – in interactions with competitors and predators, while burying, during the feeding of the larvae and in encounters of male and female, yet the specific functions of these signals are unclear so far. The aim of this project is to investigate airborne and vibrational signals in burying beetles in order to contribute to our general understanding of communication during complex social behaviors and their role in the evolution of parental care. We will examine the different airborne and vibrational signals used in a variety of social contexts of numerous species of Nicrophorus and their specific function. Additionally, we will investigate whether both channels are needed to communicate. In the next part of the project we will use a comparative approach to investigate the role of communication in the evolution of parental care. This will serve to give us an insight into the possible co-evolution of communication and sociality as suggested by the social-complexity hypothesis. Next we plan to look at the morphology of the stridulatory organs of the different species and how this correlates with characteristics of the produced signals. Finally, we will investigate if the stridulatory signals are used as part of a multimodal communication system. This study will therefore provide first insights into the use of airborne and substrate-borne vibrational signals in the context of social behavior in different Nicrophorus species and will clarify how such signals are emitted. The combined analysis of communication, social behavior and parental care will provide us with new insights into the social complexity hypothesis and, through that, give us a deeper understanding on the evolution of communication.