The foundress's dilemma: group selection for cooperation among queens of the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus
Authored by Marco A Janssen, Takao Sasaki, Zachary Shaffer, Brian Haney, Stephen C Pratt, Jennifer H Fewell
Date Published: 2016
DOI: 10.1038/srep29828
Sponsors:
United States National Science Foundation (NSF)
Platforms:
NetLogo
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Flow charts
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
https://www.comses.net/codebases/4262/releases/1.0.0/
Abstract
The evolution of cooperation is a fundamental problem in biology, especially for non-relatives, where indirect fitness benefits cannot
counter within-group inequalities. Multilevel selection models show how
cooperation can evolve if it generates a group-level advantage, even
when cooperators are disadvantaged within their group. This allows the
possibility of group selection, but few examples have been described in
nature. Here we show that group selection can explain the evolution of
cooperative nest founding in the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex
californicus. Through most of this species' range, colonies are founded
by single queens, but in some populations nests are instead founded by
cooperative groups of unrelated queens. In mixed groups of cooperative
and single-founding queens, we found that aggressive individuals had a
survival advantage within their nest, but foundress groups with such
non-cooperators died out more often than those with only cooperative
members. An agent-based model shows that the between-group advantage of
the cooperative phenotype drives it to fixation, despite its
within-group disadvantage, but only when population density is high
enough to make between-group competition intense. Field data show higher
nest density in a population where cooperative founding is common, consistent with greater density driving the evolution of cooperative
foundation through group selection.
Tags
social evolution
Kin selection
Division-of-labor
Colony-level selection
Apis-mellifera l
Multilevel
selection
Pleometrotic advantage
Pergandei hymenoptera
Unrelated
individuals
Messor-pergandei