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Investigating fundamental processes in biology requires the ability to ground broad questions in species-specific natural history. This is particularly true in the study of behavior because an organism's experience of the environment will influence the expression of behavior and the opportunity for selection. Here, we provide a review of the natural history and behavior of burying beetles of the genus Nicrophorus to provide the groundwork for comparative work that showcases their remarkable behavioral and ecological diversity. Burying beetles have long fascinated scientists because of their well-developed parenting behavior, exhibiting extended post-hatching care of offspring that varies extensively within and across taxa. Despite the burgeoning success of burying beetles as a model system for the study of behavioral evolution, there has not been a review of their behavior, ecology, and evolution in over 25 years. To address this gap, we leverage a developing community of researchers who have contributed to a detailed knowledge of burying beetles to highlight the utility of Nicrophorus for investigating the causes and consequences of social and behavioral evolution., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2024 The Author(s). Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Parental care strategies do not only vary greatly across species, but also within species there can be substantial between- and within-individual variation in parental care behavior. To better understand the evolution of care strategies, it is crucial to determine how and when parents modify their behavior in response to internal as well as environmental factors. Here, we investigated the effect of brood size, resource size and an individual's quality on care strategies of uniparental males and examined the downstream consequences on offspring performance in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides . Burying beetles breed on small vertebrate cadavers and, on average, males invest much less in care than females. Nevertheless, we found that uniparentally caring males were responsive to their social and non-social environment and adjusted the amount as well as the type of care to the size of the brood, the size of the cadaver and their own body size. Additionally, we show that the care strategies affected offspring performance. Specifically, males that cared longer had larger and more surviving larvae. Our results add to our understanding of plastic parenting strategies by showing that even the sex that provides less care can evolve a very flexible care behavior., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2023 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

While a number of studies have measured multivariate sexual selection acting on sexual signals in wild populations, few have confirmed these findings with experimental manipulation. Sagebrush crickets are ideally suited to such investigations because mating imposes an unambiguous phenotypic marker on males arising from nuptial feeding by females. We quantified sexual selection operating on male song by recording songs of virgin and mated males captured from three wild populations. To determine the extent to which selection on male song is influenced by female preference, we conducted a companion study in which we synthesized male songs and broadcast them to females in choice trials. Multivariate selection analysis revealed a saddle-shaped fitness surface, the highest peak of which corresponded to longer train and pulse durations, and longer intertrain intervals. Longer trains and pulses likely promote greater mate attraction, but selection for longer intertrain durations suggests that energetic constraints may necessitate "time outs". Playback trials confirmed the selection for longer train and pulse durations, and revealed significant stabilizing selection on dominant frequency, suggesting that the female auditory system is tightly tuned to the species-specific call frequency. Collectively, our results revealed a complex pattern of multivariate nonlinear selection characterized primarily by strong stabilizing and disruptive selection on male song traits.