Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

, Volume 65, Issue 12, pp 2329–2339 | Cite as

Genetic relationship between offspring and guardian adults of a rhacophorid frog and its care effort in response to paternal share

Original Paper
First Online:
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Abstract

The rhacophorid frog, Kurixalus eiffingeri, is one of only a few frog species that exhibits polyandry and paternal care of eggs. Previous studies predicted that multiple paternity within an egg clutch could influence the degree of paternal care and reproductive strategies. We used microsatellite DNA markers to assess the prevalence of multiple paternity within egg clutches and the relationship between male paternal care and the percent of male’s genetic contribution to the clutch, i.e., paternal share. We conducted field observations of paternal care and collected tissues from both male frogs and tadpoles for parentage analyses. Our results showed that at least five out of 31 egg clutches had multiple paternity. Attending males were always the genetic fathers of some, if not all of the eggs in the clutch they guarded. All egg clutches except one were attended by one male frog but the attending male did not necessarily sire the majority of offspring. Multiple paternity in all cases consisted of two fathers and one mother and most likely resulted from synchronous polyandry. Paternal care effort correlated significantly with the male’s genetic contribution to the clutch, suggesting that male frogs adjust the effort expended in care in response to paternal share. In addition, our results suggest that externally fertilizing species with parental care and multiple paternity may develop novel reproductive and behavioral strategies to safeguard their parental investment and overcome sperm competition.

Keywords

Anuran Microsatellite DNA markers Multi-male mating Rhacophoridae Parentage Parental care Phytotelmata 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a National Science Council grant (NSC 95-2311-B-029-001-) to Y.-C. Kam and a Council of Agriculture grant to H.-T. Yu. We thank the staff of the Experimental Forest of National Taiwan University at Chitou for providing accommodations and permitting us to collect specimens in the experimental forest. Comments and suggestions on the manuscript by J.D. Roberts, M. D. Jennions and B. Stein were greatly appreciated.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Life ScienceChinese Culture UniversityTaipeiTaiwan
  2. 2.Department of Life ScienceTunghai UniversityTaichungTaiwan
  3. 3.Institute of Zoology and Department of Life ScienceNational Taiwan UniversityTaipeiTaiwan

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