Egg size and reproductive allocation in eusocial thrips |
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Authors: | Kranz Brenda D |
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Institution: | School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA 5042, Australia; School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia; and School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia |
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Abstract: | Reproductive allocation, in terms of fecundity and egg size,has been given little consideration in eusocial societies. Tobegin to address this, absolute and body sizeadjustedegg volumes were compared, along with fecundity, between thefoundress and her subfertile soldier offspring in the eusocial,gall-inducing thrips, Kladothrips hamiltoni, Kladothrips waterhousei,and Kladothrips habrus, and a congeneric, Kladothrips morrisi,with fully fecund soldiers. Soldiers produced significantlylarger eggs than the foundress in all species except K. morrisi,where egg volumes did not differ. After accounting for bodysize, soldiers produced significantly smaller eggs than thefoundress in K. morrisi and marginally so in K. waterhousei,but egg sizes did not differ in K. hamiltoni and K. habrus.When egg size and fecundity data are combined, K. morrisi soldiersinvest less in reproduction than the foundress, and in conjunctionwith other life-history features the species can be consideredeusocial. Maximum likelihood analyses reveal relatively lowreproductive allocation skew in the ancestral lineages and highskew in the derived lineages, but the trend is not significantwhen fecundity and egg size are considered separately. Gallsize covaried negatively with soldier-to-foundress relativebody sizeadjusted egg size and reproductive allocationand marginally so with fecundity, suggesting that gall sizeis a determinant of egg size and fecundity trade-offs in eusocialthrips and providing the strongest support to date that gallsize has featured in the social evolution of this clade. Thisstudy highlights that data on fecundity alone may be insufficientfor assessing reproductive division of labor. |
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Keywords: | egg size eusociality density-dependent selection galling thrips phylogenetic directionality reproductive allocation |
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