Fitness costs associated with chemical signaling

Abstract

The production, maintenance and transmission of chemical signals often entail costs. Costs can arise, for instance, if signal production depends on the availability of limited nutritional resources or if signal transmission leads to attraction of predators. Many species effectively reduce these costs by signaling at specific times or in certain contexts only. We previously reported that breeding burying beetle females facultatively adjust their pheromone emission in response to their social environment, emitting high amounts of their chemical signal in the presence of a male partner, but not when providing uniparental care. Here we present data showing that chemical signaling is costly, and that higher investments in signaling result in reduced clutch sizes, but not a shorter life span, in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides.