Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Duarte A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5653765 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Duarte Ana A Cotter Sheena C SC De Gasperin Ornela O Houslay Thomas M TM Boncoraglio Giuseppe G Welch Martin M Kilner Rebecca M RM
Scientific reports 20171023 1
Burying beetles (Nicrophorus vespilloides) breed on small vertebrate carcasses, which they shave and smear with antimicrobial exudates. Producing antimicrobials imposes a fitness cost on burying beetles, which rises with the potency of the antimicrobial defence. Burying beetles also carry phoretic mites (Poecilochirus carabi complex), which breed alongside them on the carcass. Here we test the novel hypothesis that P. carabi mites assist burying beetles in clearing the carcass of bacteria as a s ...[more]