Age- and sex-dependent variation in relatedness corresponds to reproductive skew, territory inheritance and workload in cooperatively breeding cichlids.

Josi, Dario; Heg, Dik; Takeyama, Tomohiro; Bonfils, Danielle; Konovalov, Dmitry A; Frommen, Joachim G.; Kohda, Masanori; Taborsky, Michael (2021). Age- and sex-dependent variation in relatedness corresponds to reproductive skew, territory inheritance and workload in cooperatively breeding cichlids. Evolution, 75(11), pp. 2881-2897. Wiley 10.1111/evo.14348

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Kin selection plays a major role in the evolution of cooperative systems. However, many social species exhibit complex within-group relatedness structures, where kin selection alone cannot explain the occurrence of cooperative behaviour. Understanding such social structures is crucial to elucidate the evolution and maintenance of multi-layered cooperative societies. In lamprologine cichlids, intragroup relatedness seems to correlate positively with reproductive skew, suggesting that in this clade dominants tend to provide reproductive concessions to unrelated subordinates to secure their participation in brood care. We investigate how patterns of within-group relatedness covary with direct and indirect fitness benefits of cooperation in a highly social vertebrate, the cooperatively breeding, polygynous lamprologine cichlid Neolamprologus savoryi. Behavioural and genetic data from 43 groups containing 578 individuals show that groups are socially and genetically structured into subgroups. About 17% of group members were unrelated immigrants, and average relatedness between breeders and brood care helpers declined with helper age due to group membership dynamics. Hence the relative importance of direct and indirect fitness benefits of cooperation depends on helper age. Our findings highlight how both direct and indirect fitness benefits of cooperation and group membership can select for cooperative behaviour in societies comprising complex social and relatedness structures. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > Department of Clinical Research (DCR)
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)

UniBE Contributor:

Josi, Dario, Heg, Dierik Hans, Bonfils, Danielle, Frommen, Joachim Gerhard, Taborsky, Michael

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)

ISSN:

0014-3820

Publisher:

Wiley

Funders:

[4] Swiss National Science Foundation

Language:

English

Submitter:

Andrea Flükiger-Flückiger

Date Deposited:

08 Oct 2021 10:27

Last Modified:

20 Feb 2024 14:16

Publisher DOI:

10.1111/evo.14348

PubMed ID:

34555177

Additional Information:

Dario Josi und Dik Heg contributed equally to this work.

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/159686

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/159686

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