2003
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2409
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Insurance–based advantages for subordinate co–foundresses in a temperate paper wasp

Abstract: Recent explanations for the evolution of eusociality, focusing more on costs and benefits than relatedness, are largely untested. We validate one such model by showing that helpers in foundress groups of the paper wasp Polistes dominulus benefit from an insurance-based mechanism known as Assured Fitness Returns (AFRs). Experimental helper removals left remaining group members with more offspring than they would normally rear. Reduced groups succeeded in preserving the dead helpers' investment by rearing these … Show more

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Cited by 47 publications
(51 citation statements)
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“…APR models predict that the combined ecological pressures of extended parental care and adult mortality will favor eusociality via kin selection. APR models have been supported by studies of species that must provision offspring throughout larval development (progressive provisioners), which is unsurprising because immatures would starve without adult provisioning (Queller 1989;Gadagkar 1990;Schwarz 1996, 1997;Schwarz et al 1997Schwarz et al , 1998Field et al 2000;Shreeves et al 2003).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 97%
“…APR models predict that the combined ecological pressures of extended parental care and adult mortality will favor eusociality via kin selection. APR models have been supported by studies of species that must provision offspring throughout larval development (progressive provisioners), which is unsurprising because immatures would starve without adult provisioning (Queller 1989;Gadagkar 1990;Schwarz 1996, 1997;Schwarz et al 1997Schwarz et al , 1998Field et al 2000;Shreeves et al 2003).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 97%
“…Foundresses have already been inseminated, usually by a single male, soon after emerging from their natal nests the previous autumn. In some populations, almost all nests have only a single foundress, whereas in other populations some or almost all nests have more than one foundress, with 10 or more not infrequent in some populations of P. dominula [7]. On multiple foundress nests, typically one 'dominant' foundress lays most or all of the eggs, while the others ('subordinates') forage for insect prey which is pulped up and fed to larvae.…”
Section: Natural History Of Primitively Eusocial Waspsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…However, it is likely that group augmentation benefits do operate. If an unrelated subordinate helps to rear more offspring of the current dominant, she is likely to have more helpers and be more productive if she later inherits dominance herself: group productivity is positively correlated with group size, at least at the foundress stage [7,12], and is known to also correlate with group size at the worker stage where this has been investigated in other social insects [20]. This mechanism, of course, relies on worker offspring being unable to detect that the dominant is no longer their mother, or being prepared to rear the offspring of a less closely related individual: the evidence available suggests that this is the case [12,[21][22][23].…”
Section: Unrelated Co-foundresses In Polistesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In species in which a dedicated worker caste provides brood care, evidence for assured fitness returns requires that a worker's efforts result in augmented brood size even in the event of her death [7,8]. If this were not the case, then the worker's efforts would be wasted.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…There are well-supported examples of assured fitness returns in social groups with dedicated workers, such as the hover wasp Liostenogaster flavolineata [7] and the paper wasp Polistes dominulus [8]. However, Queller [9] argued that assured fitness returns could also have been important in the origin of social behaviour, when dedicated workers are not present (Queller considered the origin of workers, and therefore a situation in which the focal individual has no offspring of its own, but the same arguments apply to an individual that does have offspring).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%