Convergence Patterns in Subsocial Insects

Natural History of a SubsocialTortoise Beetle, Acromis Sparsa Boheman(Chrysomelidae, Cassidinae) in Panama

“…Maternal care in this species seems to have a clear and unambiguous selective value: as in many other subsocial insects, it lowers mortality due to predation (Tallamy and Wood 1986 (Hespenheide 1985).…”

Benefits and costs of earwig (Forficula auricularia) family life

“…Because this added per capita investment comes at the expense of the number of offspring that can be produced (Trivers 1972), parental care can only spread if the benefits of care, in terms of offspring survival and/or fecundity, outweigh the offspring number advantage of non-caring individuals. Such conditions may include harsh and unpredictable ecological environments due to the obvious benefits of care to offspring survival (Wilson 1971(Wilson , 1975Tallamy 1984;Tallamy and Wood 1986;Clutton-Brock 1991). However, parental care only evolves under these conditions if the experienced parental fecundity costs under these same conditions do not outweigh offspring benefits (Trivers 1972;Smith and Fretwell 1974;Clutton-Brock 1991).…”

“…"life-history preadaptations" sensu Tallamy and Wood 1986). For instance, enhanced investment in individual offspring has lower evolutionary costs in semelparous species because the whole lifetime reproduction is achieved in a single reproductive attempt (i.e.…”

“…clutches as opposed to singly deposited eggs) may be a critical preadaptation facilitating the evolution of care provisioning. It reduces the costs involved in the initial evolution of care (Tallamy and Wood 1986) in particular because it allows the provisioning of "shared" benefits (Lazarus and Inglis 1986), that is, care that the parent can provide to the family group as a whole (e.g. defense against predation; Clutton-Brock 1991;Costa 2006).…”

“…For instance, sub-social insects (Wilson 1971;Costa 2006) form family groups through part or all of juvenile development, and usually the female (but sometimes the male or both parents ;Trumbo 1996;Tallamy 2001) attends the clutch and provides care. The most common form of care is clutch attendance and the defence of eggs against predation and parasitism, but extended care including the provisioning of food to hatched larvae has evolved independently in various insect taxa (reviewed in Tallamy and Wood 1986;Trumbo 1996;Costa 2006). Care is often not obligate because larvae can survive without care by early nest leaving, dispersal, clutch-joining and/or independent foraging (Lamb 1976a,b;Vancassel 1984;Smiseth et al 2003;Agrawal et al 2004;Costa 2006;Kölliker and Vancassel 2007), implying that alternative survival strategies by larvae have been maintained (Smiseth et al 2003).…”