0000000001252250
AUTHOR
Piret Avila
No synergy needed: ecological constraints favor the evolution of eusociality.
In eusocial species, some individuals sacrifice their own reproduction for the benefit of others. It has been argued that the evolution of sterile helpers in eusocial insects requires synergistic efficiency gains through cooperation that are uncommon in cooperatively breeding vertebrates and that this precludes a universal ecological explanation of social systems with alloparental care. In contrast, using a model that incorporates realistic ecological mechanisms of population regulation, we show here that constraints on independent breeding (through nest-site limitation and dispersal mortality) eliminate any need for synergistic efficiency gains: sterile helpers may evolve even if they are …
Sex-allocation conflict and sexual selection throughout the lifespan of eusocial colonies.
AbstractModels of sex allocation conflict are central to evolutionary biology but have mostly assumed static decisions, where resource allocation strategies are constant over colony lifespan. Here, we develop a model to study how the evolution of dynamic resource allocation strategies is affected by the queen-worker conflict in annual eusocial insects. We demonstrate that the time of dispersal of sexuals affects the sex allocation ratio through sexual selection on males. Furthermore, our model provides three predictions that depart from established results of classic static allocation models. First, we find that the queen wins the sex allocation conflict, while the workers determine the max…
New insights on the role of ecology and life-history in social evolution
Biological altruism, defined as a behaviour that benefits others at an apparent cost to the focal individual, is found abundantly across different levels of biological organization. While kin selection has been useful for explaining both cooperation and conflict in specialized cooperative societies, more theoretical work has to be done to develop models for realistic ecological and life-history contexts. This thesis aims to fill this gap by providing several new insights on the role of ecology and life-history in various social systems. Firstly, I propose a model that incorporates realistic ecological mechanisms of population regulation and study how different population regulation mechanisms affe…