Data from: Inbred burying beetles suffer fitness costs from making poor decisions

File is a spreadsheet containing data from an experiment on the effects of inbreeding on decision-making in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides.

There is a growing interest in how environmental conditions, such as resource availability, can modify the severity of inbreeding depression. However, little is known about whether inbreeding depression is associated with differences in individual decision-making. For example, decisions about how many offspring to produce are also often based upon the prevailing environmental conditions, such as resource availability, and getting these decisions wrong may have important fitness consequences for both parents and offspring. We tested for effects of inbreeding on individual decision-making in the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, which uses the size of a carrion resource to make decisions about offspring number. Both inbred and outbred females adjusted their initial decisions about the number of eggs to lay based on carcass size. However, when we forced individuals to update this initial decision by providing them with a different-sized carcass partway through reproduction, inbred females failed to update their decision about how many larvae to cull. Consequently, inbred females reared too many larvae, resulting in negative fitness consequences in the form of smaller offspring and reduced female post-reproductive condition. Our study provides novel insights into the effects of inbreeding by showing that poor decision-making by inbred individuals can negatively affect fitness.

When using this data, please cite the original publication:

Richardson J, Comin P, Smiseth PT (2018) Inbred burying beetles suffer fitness costs from making poor decisions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 285(1881): 20180419. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0419
Additionally, please cite the Dryad data package:

Richardson J, Comin P, Smiseth PT (2018) Data from: Inbred burying beetles suffer fitness costs from making poor decisions. Dryad Digital Repository. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.693pn12