Colony Size and Individual Fitness in the Social SpiderAnelosimus eximius

1998 ◽  
Vol 152 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leticia Avilés ◽  
Paul Tufiño
Keyword(s):  
Colony Size ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Early and adult social environments have independent effects on individual fitness in a social vertebrate

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1813) ◽  
pp. 20151167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vérane Berger ◽  
Jean-François Lemaître ◽  
Dominique Allainé ◽  
Jean-Michel Gaillard ◽  
Aurélie Cohas
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Lifetime Reproductive Success ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Delayed Effects ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
Fitness Consequences ◽  
Dominant Female ◽  
The Social ◽  
Independent Effects

Evidence that the social environment at critical stages of life-history shapes individual trajectories is accumulating. Previous studies have identified either current or delayed effects of social environments on fitness components, but no study has yet analysed fitness consequences of social environments at different life stages simultaneously. To fill the gap, we use an extensive dataset collected during a 24-year intensive monitoring of a population of Alpine marmots ( Marmota marmota ), a long-lived social rodent. We test whether the number of helpers in early life and over the dominance tenure length has an impact on litter size at weaning, juvenile survival, longevity and lifetime reproductive success (LRS) of dominant females. Dominant females, who were born into a group containing many helpers and experiencing a high number of accumulated helpers over dominance tenure length showed an increased LRS through an increased longevity. We provide evidence that in a wild vertebrate, both early and adult social environments influence individual fitness, acting additionally and independently. These findings demonstrate that helpers have both short- and long-term effects on dominant female Alpine marmots and that the social environment at the time of birth can play a key role in shaping individual fitness in social vertebrates.

An uneasy alliance: unequal distribution of affiliative interactions among members of a captive wolf pack

2003 ◽  
Vol 81 (10) ◽  
pp. 1763-1766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Traci Cipponeri ◽  
Paul Verrell
Keyword(s):  
Canis Lupus ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Alpha Male ◽  
Social Disruption ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Gray Wolves ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
Play Interactions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Time Of Breeding

The social groups of many vertebrates may be characterized as "uneasy alliances" that reflect tensions between benefits of group membership and costs to individual fitness among members, especially nonrelatives. The prebreeding season may be a time when these tensions become most acute and so observable for packs of gray wolves (Canis lupus). We recorded affiliative (play) interactions among two females and five males of known social ranks in a captive pack as the time of breeding approached. Substantial inequalities among pairs of wolves were apparent in frequencies of both the initiation of play and the exhibition of positive responses by recipient wolves. With the subsequent arrival of the breeding season, the pack experienced social disruption that led to the eviction of the original alpha male and a reordering of the ranks of those wolves remaining. Our data suggest that unequal affiliative interactions among pack members can be associated with (and, perhaps, even be predictive of) subsequent social disruption at a time when opportunities for personal reproduction become most available.

Mixed Methods and Off/On-Line Research

2022 ◽  
pp. 404-426
Author(s):  
Eugenio Bagnini ◽  
Giovanna Russo
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Online Groups ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Opportunities ◽  
Body Care

The chapter proposes a methodological consideration on the use of mixed methods and the social opportunities of digital technologies in sports and wellness practices. The research carried out tries to answer the following question: What are the social repercussions and body care practices allowed by digital technologies in the field of sports and physical activities for well-being? The contribution investigates the relationship that is established between practitioners of individual fitness and wellness sports activities, mainly in gyms, and the changes attributable to HTI (human technology interactions) with digital devices (apps and participation in online groups). Through a qualitative-quantitative methodology approach, the multifunctionality of the aforementioned digital tools (on a mediatic, playful, and technological level) were observed in order to verify whether the convergence between digital and sports social worlds is an instrument of only subjective well-being or may indeed prove as a new collective way of sharing, participating in, and adopting healthy practices.

Colony size affects breeding density, but not spatial distribution type, in a seabird

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 1113-1119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Bouwhuis ◽  
Felix Ballani ◽  
Marie Bourgeois ◽  
Dietrich Stoyan
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Density Dependence ◽  
Colony Size ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Variable Density ◽  
Breeding Density ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Nest Distribution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Distribution Type

Abstract The spatial distribution of individuals within populations can result in fine-scale density dependence and affect the social environment that is encountered. As such, it is important to quantify within-population spatial structuring and understand the factors that shape it. In this study, we make use of point process statistics to test whether colony size affects the statistical type of spatial nest distribution produced by common terns (Sterna hirundo) breeding at identical manmade rectangular and homogeneous islands of fixed physical size. Comparing subcolonies of variable density both within and across years, we find that inter-nest distances are smaller at higher local and overall breeding density, but that the spatial distribution type does not vary across the observed densities. This suggests that the birds’ main settlement rules do not depend on density. In our case, analyses of fine-scale density dependence or potential social effects therefore do not need to account for between-individual heterogeneity in settlement decision rules or acceptance of these rules. We urge, however, other studies to similarly test for density dependence of the spatial distribution of individuals before undertaking such “downstream” analyses.

scholarly journals Carry-over effects of the social environment on future divorce probability in a wild bird population

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1817) ◽  
pp. 20150920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antica Culina ◽  
Camilla A. Hinde ◽  
Ben C. Sheldon
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Mating Strategies ◽  
Detailed Data ◽  
Bird Population ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Carry Over

Initial mate choice and re-mating strategies (infidelity and divorce) influence individual fitness. Both of these should be influenced by the social environment, which determines the number and availability of potential partners. While most studies looking at this relationship take a population-level approach, individual-level responses to variation in the social environment remain largely unstudied. Here, we explore carry-over effects on future mating decisions of the social environment in which the initial mating decision occurred. Using detailed data on the winter social networks of great tits, we tested whether the probability of subsequent divorce, a year later, could be predicted by measures of the social environment at the time of pairing. We found that males that had a lower proportion of female associates, and whose partner ranked lower among these, as well as inexperienced breeders, were more likely to divorce after breeding. We found no evidence that a female's social environment influenced the probability of divorce. Our findings highlight the importance of the social environment that individuals experience during initial pair formation on later pairing outcomes, and demonstrate that such effects can be delayed. Exploring these extended effects of the social environment can yield valuable insights into processes and selective pressures acting upon the mating strategies that individuals adopt.

scholarly journals Reduced cellular immune response in social insect lineages

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 20150984 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita M. López-Uribe ◽  
Warren B. Sconiers ◽  
Steven D. Frank ◽  
Robert R. Dunn ◽  
David R. Tarpy
Keyword(s):  
Immune Response ◽  
Colony Size ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Cellular Immune Response ◽  
Immune Systems ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
The Social ◽  
Risk Of Disease ◽  
Cellular Immune

Social living poses challenges for individual fitness because of the increased risk of disease transmission among conspecifics. Despite this challenge, sociality is an evolutionarily successful lifestyle, occurring in the most abundant and diverse group of organisms on earth—the social insects. Two contrasting hypotheses predict the evolutionary consequences of sociality on immune systems. The social group hypothesis posits that sociality leads to stronger individual immune systems because of the higher risk of disease transmission in social species. By contrast, the relaxed selection hypothesis proposes that social species have evolved behavioural immune defences that lower disease risk within the group, resulting in lower immunity at the individual level. We tested these hypotheses by measuring the encapsulation response in 11 eusocial and non-eusocial insect lineages. We built phylogenetic mixed linear models to investigate the effect of behaviour, colony size and body size on cellular immune response. We found a significantly negative effect of colony size on encapsulation response (Markov chain Monte Carlo generalized linear mixed model (mcmcGLMM) p < 0.05; phylogenetic generalized least squares (PGLS) p < 0.05). Our findings suggest that insects living in large societies may rely more on behavioural mechanisms, such as hygienic behaviours, than on immune function to reduce the risk of disease transmission among nest-mates.

scholarly journals The age and evolution of sociality in Stegodyphus spiders: a molecular phylogenetic perspective

2006 ◽  
Vol 274 (1607) ◽  
pp. 231-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jes Johannesen ◽  
Yael Lubin ◽  
Deborah R Smith ◽  
Trine Bilde ◽  
Jutta M Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Divergence ◽  
Transient Species ◽  
Evolutionary Time ◽  
Social Spider ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Evolution Of Sociality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Molecular Phylogenetic ◽  
Phylogenetic Perspective

Social, cooperative breeding behaviour is rare in spiders and generally characterized by inbreeding, skewed sex ratios and high rates of colony turnover, processes that when combined may reduce genetic variation and lower individual fitness quickly. On these grounds, social spider species have been suggested to be unstable in evolutionary time, and hence sociality a rare phenomenon in spiders. Based on a partial molecular phylogeny of the genus Stegodyphus , we address the hypothesis that social spiders in this genus are evolutionary transient. We estimate the age of the three social species, test whether they represent an ancestral or derived state and assess diversification relative to subsocial congeners. Intraspecific sequence divergence was high in all of the social species, lending no support for the idea that they are young, transient species. The age of the social lineages, constant lineage branching and the likelihood that social species are independently derived suggest that either the social species are ‘caught in sociality’ or they have evolved into cryptic species.

scholarly journals Litter characteristics and helping context during early life shape the responsiveness of the stress axis in a wild cooperative breeder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelie Cohas ◽  
Coraline Bichet ◽  
Rebecca Garcia ◽  
Sylvia Pardonnet ◽  
Sophie Lardy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stress Response ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Hpa Axis ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Stress Hormones ◽  
Stress Axis ◽  
Regulatory Processes ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
The Social

Stress responses have evolved to quickly and appropriately deal with environmental stressors in order to secure or restore homeostasis. Since the regulation of stress hormones plays a key adaptive role, the regulatory processes controlling stress hormones levels may be under high selective pressure. The social environment during early life (parents and litter characteristics) strongly affects ontogeny of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In cooperative breeders, offspring are also confronted with helpers but whether and how variation in the helping context can affect HPA axis responsiveness of offspring remains unanswered. Combining dexamethasone suppression and adrenocorticotropic hormone stimulation tests, we investigated the link between the social environment and the characteristics of the HPA axis at the early stages of life in wild Alpine marmots. We show that when raised in the presence of helpers, marmot pups exhibit a greater capacity not only to mount, but also to turn off a stress response. The capacity to mount a stress response was also higher as the pups were raised in large litters. Determining impacts of such social modulation of the HPA axis functioning on individual fitness would make an important contribution to our understanding of the evolution of cooperative breeding.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document