Identification and Cloning of Genes Involved in the Regulation of Energy Metabolism of Burying Beetles

Parental care is associated with substantial fitness costs. Understanding how parental care causes these fitness costs requires knowledge of the molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying parental care. Energy metabolism is a strong candidate as a mechanism underlying the generation of fitness costs of parental care. Burying beetles (Nicrophorus spp.), for example, increase their mass by 10% during egg laying and lose it again when providing parental care. Further, the resting metabolic rate is about two times higher in beetles providing parental care than in beetles that do not. The goal of this project was to identify and clone genes that are potentially involved in the regulation of energy metabolism in reproducing burying beetles using a candidate gene approach. Within insects – in addition to the insulin/insulin-like (IIS) pathway – the juvenile hormone (JH) pathway is involved in the regulation of nutrient storage and metabolism during reproduction. Through the course of this project, we were able to successfully clone and sequence putative genes for N. pustulatus actin (commonly used as quantitative control), Kr-h1 (a key signaling gene of the JH pathway) and IRS (a key gene of the IIS pathway). Importantly, these sequences may be used to monitor gene expression patterns at different stages of Nicrophorus reproduction