Unrelated Helpers in a Primitively Eusocial Wasp: Is Helping Tailored Towards Direct Fitness?
نویسندگان
چکیده
The paper wasp Polistes dominulus is unique among the social insects in that nearly one-third of co-foundresses are completely unrelated to the dominant individual whose offspring they help to rear and yet reproductive skew is high. These unrelated subordinates stand to gain direct fitness through nest inheritance, raising the question of whether their behaviour is adaptively tailored towards maximizing inheritance prospects. Unusually, in this species, a wealth of theory and empirical data allows us to predict how unrelated subordinates should behave. Based on these predictions, here we compare helping in subordinates that are unrelated or related to the dominant wasp across an extensive range of field-based behavioural contexts. We find no differences in foraging effort, defense behaviour, aggression or inheritance rank between unrelated helpers and their related counterparts. Our study provides no evidence, across a number of behavioural scenarios, that the behaviour of unrelated subordinates is adaptively modified to promote direct fitness interests.
منابع مشابه
Reproductive constraints, direct fitness and indirect fitness benefits explain helping behaviour in the primitively eusocial wasp, Polistes canadensis.
A key step in the evolution of sociality is the abandonment of independent breeding in favour of helping. In cooperatively breeding vertebrates and primitively eusocial insects, helpers are capable of leaving the group and reproducing independently, and yet many do not. A fundamental question therefore is why do helpers help? Helping behaviour may be explained by constraints on independent repr...
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The paper wasp Polistes dominulus is unique among the social insects in that nearly one-third of co-foundresses arecompletely unrelated to the dominant individual whose offspring they help to rear and yet reproductive skew is high. Theseunrelated subordinates stand to gain direct fitness through nest inheritance, raising the question of whether their behaviouris adaptively tailo...
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