Costs and benefits of joint colony founding in Australian Acacia thrips |
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Authors: | J M Bono B J Crespi |
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Institution: | (1) Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Department of Biosciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada;(2) Present address: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 1041 E. Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ, 85721 |
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Abstract: | Facultative joint colony founding by social insects (pleometrosis) provides an outstanding opportunity to analyze the costs
and benefits of sociality. Pleometrosis has been documented for a range of social insects, but most studies on the adaptive
benefits of this behavior are restricted to the Hymenoptera. In this study, we provide the first analysis of costs and benefits
associated with pleometrosis for Australian Dunatothrips, which form domiciles by glueing together phyllodes (leaves) of their Acacia host plant. In Dunatothrips aneurae, the distribution of foundress numbers per nest indicated that females formed associations non-randomly. Furthermore, average
group size was independent of both the number of foundresses on the host plant and the number of mature colonies, suggesting
that this behavior was not simply a response to limited availability of nesting sites. Although per capita reproduction declined
with increasing group size, we also identified two benefits of pleometrosis: (1) individual foundresses in groups had higher
survival than solitary foundresses during the brood development period, and (2) larger colony sizes resulting from pleometrosis
provided a benefit later in colony development, because a higher proportion of D. aneurae adults survived invasions by the kleptoparasite Xaniothrips mulga when colony size was larger. These results demonstrate that the reproductive costs of pleometrosis are at least partially
counterbalanced by survival benefits.
Received 4 April 2006; revised 9 September 2006; accepted 20 September 2006. |
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Keywords: | Pleometrosis Dunatothrips evolution of co-operation foundress survival brood production |
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