Affiliation: | 1. Evolutionary Biology & Ecology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg (Brsg.), Germany Theoretical Research in Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Contribution: Conceptualization (supporting), Data curation (lead), Formal analysis (lead), Investigation (supporting), Methodology (lead), Software (equal), Validation (lead), Visualization (lead), Writing - original draft (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal);2. Theoretical Research in Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Contribution: Funding acquisition (supporting), Methodology (supporting), Software (supporting), Supervision (supporting), Writing - review & editing (supporting);3. Evolutionary Biology & Ecology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg (Brsg.), Germany |
Abstract: | Food availability affects the trade-off between maintenance and reproduction in a wide range of organisms, but its effects on social insects remain poorly understood. In social insects, the maintenance-reproduction trade-off seems to be absent in individuals but may appear at the colony level, although this is rarely investigated. In this study, we restricted food availability in a termite species to test how it affects survival and reproduction, both at the individual and colony level. Using Bayesian multivariate response models, we found very minor effects of food restriction on the survival of queens, individual workers or on the colonies. In contrast, queen fecundity was significantly reduced, whereas colony-level fecundity (i.e., the number of dispersing alates, future reproductives) increased under food restriction as workers gave up cooperation within the colony and became alates that dispersed. Our study shows that life-history trade-offs can be mitigated by individuals' social behaviours in social organisms. |