How within-group behavioural variation and task efficiency enhance fitness in a social group |
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Authors: | Pruitt Jonathan N Riechert Susan E |
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Affiliation: | Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-1610, USA. jpruitt6@utk.edu |
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Abstract: | How task specialization, individual task performance and within-group behavioural variation affects fitness is a longstanding and unresolved problem in our understanding of animal societies. In the temperate social spider, Anelosimus studiosus, colony members exhibit a behavioural polymorphism; females either exhibit an aggressive 'asocial' or docile 'social' phenotype. We assessed individual prey-capture success for both phenotypes, and the role of phenotypic composition on group-level prey-capture success for three prey size classes. We then estimated the effect of group phenotypic composition on fitness in a common garden, as inferred from individual egg-case masses. On average, asocial females were more successful than social females at capturing large prey, and colony-level prey-capture success was positively associated with the frequency of the asocial phenotype. Asocial colony members were also more likely to engage in prey-capture behaviour in group-foraging situations. Interestingly, our fitness estimates indicate females of both phenotypes experience increased fitness when occupying colonies containing unlike individuals. These results imply a reciprocal fitness benefit of within-colony behavioural variation, and perhaps division of labour in a spider society. |
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Keywords: | animal personality balancing selection behavioural syndrome cooperation task specialization social selection |
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