Group size adjustment to ecological demand in a cooperative breeder

Zöttl, Markus; Frommen, Joachim G.; Taborsky, Michael

doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.2772

Cited by 42 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…If in a natural context an intruder cannot monopolize its own shelter, the adequate response is to submit towards other shelter owners (Taborsky ; Zöttl et al . ). The latter are then willing to tolerate the subordinate fish close to the shelter (Taborsky et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Effect of the early social environment on behavioural and genomic responses to a social challenge in a cooperatively breeding vertebrate

et al. 2017

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The early social environment can have substantial, lifelong effects on vertebrate social behaviour, which can be mediated by developmental plasticity of brain gene expression. Early-life effects can influence immediate behavioural responses towards later-life social challenges and can activate different gene expression responses. However, while genomic responses to social challenges have been reported frequently, how developmental experience influences the shape of these genomic reaction norms remains largely unexplored. We tested how manipulating the early social environment of juvenile cooperatively breeding cichlids, Neolamprologus pulcher, affects their behavioural and brain genomic responses when competing over a resource. Juveniles were reared either with or without a breeder pair and a helper. Fish reared with family members behaved more appropriately in the competition than when reared without. We investigated whether the different social rearing environments also affected the genomic responses to the social challenge. A set of candidate genes, coding for hormones and receptors influencing social behaviour, were measured in the telencephalon and hypothalamus. Social environment and social challenge both influenced gene expression of egr-1 (early growth response 1) and gr1 (glucocorticoid receptor 1) in the telencephalon and of bdnf (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in the hypothalamus. A global analysis of the 11 expression patterns in the two brain areas showed that neurogenomic states diverged more strongly between intruder fish and control fish when they had been reared in a natural social setting. Our results show that same molecular pathways may be used differently in response to a social challenge depending on early-life experiences.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Effect of the early social environment on behavioural and genomic responses to a social challenge in a cooperatively breeding vertebrate

et al. 2017

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“…Studies investigating pay-to-stay focused mainly on predictions regarding behavioural responses of group members towards helpers not paying in accordance with need [13][14][15]17]. Others investigated how the tolerance of subordinates depends on the need for help [18,26], how helpers adjust their cooperative effort to alternative options [19,27], how dominant individuals benefit from subordinates [16] and if the amount of helping increases tolerance in the group [28]. Most studies have supported predictions derived from the pay-to-stay hypothesis (but see [16,28]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group-size-dependent punishment of idle subordinates in a cooperative breeder where helpers pay to stay

et al. 2014

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In cooperative breeding systems, dominant breeders sometimes tolerate unrelated individuals even if they inflict costs on the dominants. According to the 'pay-to-stay' hypothesis, (i) subordinates can outweigh these costs by providing help and (ii) dominants should be able to enforce help by punishing subordinates that provide insufficient help. This requires that dominants can monitor helping and can recognize group members individually. In a field experiment, we tested whether cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher subordinates increase their help after a forced 'idle' period, how other group members respond to a previously idle helper, and how helper behaviour and group responses depend on group size. Previously idle helpers increased their submissiveness and received more aggression than control helpers, suggesting that punishment occurred to enforce help. Subordinates in small groups increased their help more than those in large groups, despite receiving less aggression. When subordinates were temporarily removed, dominants in small groups were more likely to evict returning subordinates. Our results suggest that only in small groups do helpers face a latent threat of punishment by breeders as predicted by the pay-to-stay hypothesis. In large groups, cognitive constraints may prevent breeders from tracking the behaviour of a large number of helpers.

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“…Synergy and discounting generate non-linearities in the rate of return of the PG and hence reflect diminishing returns or economies of scale, which are common features of group interactions in biological and social systems [53,[86][87][88]. For example, in cooperative breeding cichlid fish the optimum breeding group size changes depending on the perceived environmental threats as compared to the potential benefits an additional member could provide to the group [89]. Additional members can dilute the risk of predation and/or actively take part in territory defence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-evolutionary dynamics of social dilemmas

Gokhale

Hauert

2016

Preprint

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Social dilemmas are an integral part of social interactions. Cooperative actions, ranging from secreting extra-cellular products in microbial populations to donating blood in humans, are costly to the actor and hence create an incentive to shirk and avoid the costs. Nevertheless, cooperation is ubiquitous in nature. Both costs and benefits often depend non-linearly on the number and types of individuals involved-as captured by idioms such as 'too many cooks spoil the broth' where additional contributions are discounted, or 'two heads are better than one' where cooperators synergistically enhance the group benefit. Interaction group sizes may depend on the size of the population and hence on ecological processes. This results in feedback mechanisms between ecological and evolutionary processes, which jointly affect and determine the evolutionary trajectory. Only recently combined eco-evolutionary processes became experimentally tractable in microbial social dilemmas. Here we analyse the evolutionary dynamics of non-linear social dilemmas in settings where the population fluctuates in size and the environment changes over time. In particular, cooperation is often supported and maintained at high densities through ecological fluctuations. Moreover, we find that the combination of the two processes routinely reveals highly complex dynamics, which suggests common occurrence in nature.

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Group size adjustment to ecological demand in a cooperative breeder

Cited by 42 publications

References 76 publications

Effect of the early social environment on behavioural and genomic responses to a social challenge in a cooperatively breeding vertebrate

Effect of the early social environment on behavioural and genomic responses to a social challenge in a cooperatively breeding vertebrate

Group-size-dependent punishment of idle subordinates in a cooperative breeder where helpers pay to stay

Eco-evolutionary dynamics of social dilemmas

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