Et tu, brother? Kinship and increased nutrition lower the incidence of cannibalism in male bulb mites

Beuken, Tom P. G. Van den; Stockwell, Logan W.; Smallegange, Isabel M.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.04.006

Cited by 13 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Cannibalism and dispersal are two important phenomena that affect population structure and are dependent on densities of the cannibals and victims, but also of their food (Fox 1975;Polis 1981;Otronen and Hanski 1983;Ellner et al 2001;van den Beuken et al 2019). Although many studies focus on how kin recognition can affect decisions of individuals to cannibalise (Pfennig 1997;Faraji et al 2000;Schausberger and Croft 2001;van den Beuken et al 2019) or to disperse (Hamilton and May 1977;Lambin et al 2001), to the best of our knowledge this is the first experiment in which these two behaviours are studied together. Due to the lack of an additional control for larval mortality and/or dispersal, it was not possible to know whether the missing larvae were eaten or dispersed, therefore we Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Males cannibalise and females disperse in the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis

et al. 2020

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Cannibalism is a widespread phenomenon in nature, often occurring when food is scarce, for example among predators that have overexploited a local prey population. Instead of cannibalising, predators can disperse, thereby avoiding being cannibalised or cannibalising related conspecifics, which results in inclusive fitness loss. Theory on prey exploitation in ephemeral predator-prey systems predicts that predators may be selected to display prudent predation by dispersing early, thus saving food for their remaining offspring. This is especially advantageous when average relatedness in the local population is high. Less prudent predators refrain from dispersing until all prey are exterminated. These prey exploitation strategies may also have repercussions for cannibalism, especially when it is driven by food shortage. We therefore investigated to what extent adult females and males cannibalise or disperse after prey have been exterminated locally. We used two lines of the haplodiploid predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis that were selected for early and late dispersal, respectively. In wind tunnels, we observed the cannibalistic and dispersal behaviour of individual adult predators of these lines on a rose leaf with only conspecific larvae as food. Both selection lines behaved similarly, indicating that selection on dispersal behaviour did not result in correlated effects on cannibalism behaviour. Male predators stayed significantly longer on the leaf and engaged more often in cannibalism than females. The results suggest that there might be gender-specific differences in cannibalistic tendency in relation to dispersal. Future theoretical studies on the evolution of cannibalism and dispersal should take differences between the genders into account.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Males cannibalise and females disperse in the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis

et al. 2020

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“…Thus, contextual cues and prior association are not likely to occur. By eliminating previous contacts between testing subjects, Tetranychus urticae, G. liturivorus and R. robini are likely to use innate kin recognition mechanisms (Saitoh & Choh, 2018;Schausberger & Sato, 2020;Van den Beuken et al, 2019). Prior association of N. californicus allowed the avoidance of kin cannibalism (Christiansen & Schausberger, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kin recognition by cannibals is modulated by hunger level in a generalist predatory mite Amblyseius herbicolus (Chant) (Acari: Phytoseiidae)

Zhang

2022

J Applied Entomology

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Cannibalism, the predation of conspecifics, is a common phenomenon found across the animal kingdom (Fox, 1975;Schausberger, 2003).This behaviour is considered a plastic response to survive food scarcity (Khodaei & Long, 2020). The cannibals not only gain nutrients from eating their conspecifics but also reduce the intraspecific competition for food, space and mates (Schausberger, 2003). However, risks are also associated with cannibalism. The predation of conspecifics is a pathway for spreading pathogens and diseases, especially species-specific ones (

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“…However, the results of our experiment are consistent with the idea that competition may be more intense among similar individuals, especially if kin recognition is absent. Although since kin recognition has been found in a closely related and ecologically similar species, we expect it in R. echinopus [32].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rhizoglyphus echinopus can assess population characteristics via pheromones, as scramblers can be induced even in large nymphs at low densities by exposing them to pheromones from dense colonies [14]. Furthermore, a closely related and ecologically extremely similar species ( R. robini ) can recognize kin [32]. These characteristics make Acarid mites useful model systems for the study of conditional strategies and promising candidates for assessing the effect of kin structure on thresholds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kin-mediated plasticity in alternative reproductive tactics

et al. 2021

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Conditional strategies occur when the relative fitness pay-off from expressing a given phenotype is contingent upon environmental circumstances. This conditional strategy model underlies cases of alternative reproductive tactics, in which individuals of one sex employ different means to obtain reproduction. How kin structure affects the expression of alternative reproductive tactics remains unexplored. We address this using the mite Rhizoglyphus echinopus , in which large males develop into aggressive ‘fighters’ and small males develop into non-aggressive ‘scramblers.’ Because only fighters kill their rivals, they should incur a greater indirect fitness cost when competing with their relatives, and thus fighter expression could be reduced in the presence of relatives. We raised mites in full-sibling or mixed-sibship groups and found that fighters were more common at higher body weights in full-sibling groups, not less common as we predicted (small individuals were almost exclusively scramblers in both treatments). This result could be explained if relatedness and cue variability are interpreted signals of population density, since fighters are more common at low densities in this species. Alternatively, our results may indicate that males compete more intensely with relatives in this species. We provide the first evidence of kin-mediated plasticity in the expression of alternative reproductive tactics.

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Et tu, brother? Kinship and increased nutrition lower the incidence of cannibalism in male bulb mites

Cited by 13 publications

References 35 publications

Males cannibalise and females disperse in the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis

Males cannibalise and females disperse in the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis

Kin recognition by cannibals is modulated by hunger level in a generalist predatory mite Amblyseius herbicolus (Chant) (Acari: Phytoseiidae)

Kin-mediated plasticity in alternative reproductive tactics

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