Extended maternal care and offspring interactions in the subsocial Australian crab spider, Xysticus bimaculatus

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
pp. 344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlis Dumke
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Care ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Suitable Model ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Selective Agents ◽  
Maternal Presence ◽  
Communal Feeding ◽  
Extended Maternal Care ◽  
Crab Spider

Extended maternal care is considered a prerequisite for the evolution of permanent family grouping and eusociality in invertebrates. In spiders, the essential evolutionary transitions to permanent sociality along this ‘subsocial route’ include the extension of care beyond hatching, the persistence of offspring groups to maturation and the elimination of premating dispersal. Subsocial Australian crab spiders (Thomisidae) present a suitable system to identify the selective agents prolonging group cohesion. Particularly, the recent discovery of independently evolved subsociality in the thomisid Xysticus bimaculatus provides new potential for comparative studies to expand the limited understanding of group cohesion beyond the offspring’s potential independence and despite socially exploitative behaviour. Providing fundamental knowledge, the present study investigated maternal care and offspring interactions in X. bimaculatus for the first time. Nest dissections revealed that mothers produce exceptionally small clutches, potentially reflecting a limit in the number of juveniles they can successfully care for. A laboratory experiment demonstrated crucial benefits for offspring in receiving maternal care beyond nutritional independence, mediated by extensive maternal food provisioning. However, prey-sharing also occurred between juveniles irrespective of maternal presence, which marks this species’ predisposition for exploitative feeding behaviour. I therefore suggest X. bimaculatus as a suitable model for investigating the regulation of communal feeding in group-living spiders.

scholarly journals Genomic signatures of evolutionary transitions from solitary to group living

Science ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 348 (6239) ◽  
pp. 1139-1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. M. Kapheim ◽  
H. Pan ◽  
C. Li ◽  
S. L. Salzberg ◽  
D. Puiu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Group Living ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Genomic Signatures

scholarly journals Sociality and health: impacts of sociality on disease susceptibility and transmission in animal and human societies

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1669) ◽  
pp. 20140116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Kappeler ◽  
Sylvia Cremer ◽  
Charles L. Nunn
Keyword(s):  
Disease Ecology ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Social Buffering ◽  
Health And Fitness ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Health Related Research ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Survival And Reproduction

This paper introduces a theme issue presenting the latest developments in research on the impacts of sociality on health and fitness. The articles that follow cover research on societies ranging from insects to humans. Variation in measures of fitness (i.e. survival and reproduction) has been linked to various aspects of sociality in humans and animals alike, and variability in individual health and condition has been recognized as a key mediator of these relationships. Viewed from a broad evolutionary perspective, the evolutionary transitions from a solitary lifestyle to group living have resulted in several new health-related costs and benefits of sociality. Social transmission of parasites within groups represents a major cost of group living, but some behavioural mechanisms, such as grooming, have evolved repeatedly to reduce this cost. Group living also has created novel costs in terms of altered susceptibility to infectious and non-infectious disease as a result of the unavoidable physiological consequences of social competition and integration, which are partly alleviated by social buffering in some vertebrates. Here, we define the relevant aspects of sociality, summarize their health-related costs and benefits, and discuss possible fitness measures in different study systems. Given the pervasive effects of social factors on health and fitness, we propose a synthesis of existing conceptual approaches in disease ecology, ecological immunology and behavioural neurosciences by adding sociality as a key factor, with the goal to generate a broader framework for organismal integration of health-related research.

scholarly journals Evolution of C 4 plants: a new hypothesis for an interaction of CO 2 and water relations mediated by plant hydraulics

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1588) ◽  
pp. 583-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin P. Osborne ◽  
Lawren Sack
Keyword(s):  
Water Relations ◽  
High Light ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Physiological Models ◽  
Plant Hydraulics ◽  
Selective Agents ◽  
Environmental Transitions ◽  
Rate Of Photosynthesis ◽  
New Hypothesis

C 4 photosynthesis has evolved more than 60 times as a carbon-concentrating mechanism to augment the ancestral C 3 photosynthetic pathway. The rate and the efficiency of photosynthesis are greater in the C 4 than C 3 type under atmospheric CO 2 depletion, high light and temperature, suggesting these factors as important selective agents. This hypothesis is consistent with comparative analyses of grasses, which indicate repeated evolutionary transitions from shaded forest to open habitats. However, such environmental transitions also impact strongly on plant–water relations. We hypothesize that excessive demand for water transport associated with low CO 2 , high light and temperature would have selected for C 4 photosynthesis not only to increase the efficiency and rate of photosynthesis, but also as a water-conserving mechanism. Our proposal is supported by evidence from the literature and physiological models. The C 4 pathway allows high rates of photosynthesis at low stomatal conductance, even given low atmospheric CO 2 . The resultant decrease in transpiration protects the hydraulic system, allowing stomata to remain open and photosynthesis to be sustained for longer under drying atmospheric and soil conditions. The evolution of C 4 photosynthesis therefore simultaneously improved plant carbon and water relations, conferring strong benefits as atmospheric CO 2 declined and ecological demand for water rose.

The functions of ritual in social groups

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel E. Watson-Jones ◽  
Cristine H. Legare
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Social Learning Biases

AbstractRitual cognition builds upon social learning biases that may have become specialized for affiliation within social groups. The adaptive problems of group living required a means of identifying group members, ensuring commitment to the group, facilitating cooperation, and maintaining group cohesion. We discuss how ritual serves these social functions.

scholarly journals Locomotor compromises maintain group cohesion in baboon troops on the move

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1955) ◽  
pp. 20210839
Author(s):  
Roi Harel ◽  
J. Carter Loftus ◽  
Margaret C. Crofoot
Keyword(s):  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Movement Ecology ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Shared Decision ◽  
Collective Movement ◽  
Living Species ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Locomotor Capacity

When members of a group differ in locomotor capacity, coordinating collective movement poses a challenge: some individuals may have to move faster (or slower) than their preferred speed to remain together. Such compromises have energetic repercussions, yet research in collective behaviour has largely neglected locomotor consensus costs. Here, we integrate high-resolution tracking of wild baboon locomotion and movement with simulations to demonstrate that size-based variation in locomotor capacity poses an obstacle to the collective movement. While all baboons modulate their gait and move-pause dynamics during collective movement, the costs of maintaining cohesion are disproportionately borne by smaller group members. Although consensus costs are not distributed equally, all group-mates do make locomotor compromises, suggesting a shared decision-making process drives the pace of collective movement in this highly despotic species. These results highlight the importance of considering how social dynamics and locomotor capacity interact to shape the movement ecology of group-living species.

scholarly journals Clever mothers balance time and effort in parental care: a study on free-ranging dogs

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 160583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manabi Paul ◽  
Shubhra Sau ◽  
Anjan K. Nandi ◽  
Anindita Bhadra
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Maternal Care ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Lifetime Reproductive Success ◽  
Levels Of Care ◽  
Future Reproduction ◽  
Fitness Benefits ◽  
Time And Energy ◽  
Free Ranging ◽  
Active Care

Mammalian offspring require parental care, at least in the form of nursing during their early development. While mothers need to invest considerable time and energy in ensuring the survival of their current offspring, they also need to optimize their investment in one batch of offspring in order to ensure future reproduction and hence lifetime reproductive success. Free-ranging dogs live in small social groups, mate promiscuously and lack the cooperative breeding biology of other group-living canids. They face high early-life mortality, which in turn reduces fitness benefits of the mother from a batch of pups. We carried out a field-based study on free-ranging dogs in India to understand the nature of maternal care. Our analysis reveals that mothers reduce investment in energy-intensive active care and increase passive care as the pups grow older, thereby keeping overall levels of care more or less constant over pup age. Using the patterns of mother–pup interactions, we define the different phases of maternal care behaviour.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document