Parental Care In Omei Moustache Toad (Vibrissaphora Boringii)

Parental care is a common phenomenon among animals. Its’ formation and regulation mechanism is a central topic in evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology. The model and strength of parental care varies among different animal taxa. It also plays an important role in the evolution of life history, sexual selection and mating systems. Therefore, investigating parental care has a great significance for understanding the breeding behavior and behavioral evolution of species.Amphibian is a valuable taxa which links the evolutionary gap between the aquatic and terrestrial animals. Investigating its’ behavior is more important to comprehensively understand the behavioral evolution in animals. The Omei moustache toad (Vibrissaphora boringii) attributed to Vibrissaphora (anura) is an endemic species in China. Previous studies are limited to morphological structure, ecological habits and embryonic development. The research on breeding behavior is relatively scarce. Especially, the existence of parental care in this species is still controversial.In this study, we have observed the breeding behavior of V. boringii during breeding season in the year 2013 and 2014 at Badagongshan Natural Reserve in Hunan province. Also, we have conducted the paternity identification using microsatellite loci. According to the data, we have found that:1) The Omei moustache toad existed parental care behavior. In breeding season, males constructed nests under large rocks in mountain streams in order to attracting females to mate and spawn, then most males leave the nest. While, there are a portion of males stayed in their nests for many days to provide parental care when few or no additional mating occurred.2) The duration time of parental care in males varied among individuals. In 2013, among 139 males gathering in breeding area,38 males took part in reproduction. A total of 21 males provided parental care which occupied 55.2% of males participating breeding. The mean duration time of parental care is 40 days. In the year 2014, there are 97 males entering into breeding site and 36 of them breed. A total of only 17 individuals (47.2% of males participating breeding) provided parental care and the mean duration time is 50 days.3) We have screened nine microsatellite loci to identify paternity between males and eggs of 34 breeding nest. The result showed that there is 83% of males tended to care their own offspring. Only a little part (17%) of males cared other males’ eggs. This results consistent with the kin selection theory.