The sounds of silence: The function of stridulation in carcass burial in Nicrophorine burying beetles

Nicrophorus beetles are among many genera of insects to use stridulation as a form of intra- and interspecific communication. While burying beetles can be observed stridulating throughout mating, carcass burial, and brood rearing, the function of stridulation is not known. Studies have shown that if stridulatory anatomy are ablated in male and/or female American burying beetles (N. americanus), breeding adults produce significantly fewer offspring than unablated pairs. The contextual signaling during cooperative burial behaviors remains unclear, and thus this study sought to clarify how the inhibition of stridulation in breeding adult Nicrophorus marginatus influenced carcass burial behavior and reproductive success. Preliminary results suggest that all treatments containing inhibited adults took longer on average to bury carcasses than uninhibited controls.