Diel and life-history characteristics of personality: consistency versus flexibility in relation to ecological change

Watts, J. Colton; Ross, Chelsea; Jones, Tricia S.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.12.020

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Two of these observation periods were performed during daylight hours, two in the early evening immediately after sunset, and two during early morning twilight hours. The latter two time intervals correspond to the peak activity periods in this species (Watts et al, 2015). Examples of agonistic behaviour included biting or chasing focal females or contacts with colony members that resulted in raised forelegs, which constitutes an aggressive posture in these spiders (Pruitt et al, 2008;Pruitt & Riechert, 2009b).…”

Section: Policing Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 96%

Intense group selection selects for ideal group compositions, but selection within groups maintains them

2017

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A group's composition is important for its success. Colonies of the spider Anelosimus studiosus appear to have responded to this pressure by evolving the ability to maintain mixtures of docile versus aggressive individuals that help colonies avoid extinction. Here we demonstrate that colony extinction events unite the optimal group composition of all colony constituents, regardless of phenotype, with that of the colony as a whole. This is because colony extinction events explain the majority of individual mortality events in A. studiosus. Through within-and across-habitat colony manipulations, we further determined that reduction in reproductive output by individuals bearing overabundant phenotypes underlies the ability of colonies to adaptively regulate their compositions. When we experimentally created colonies with an overabundance of the docile or aggressive phenotype, individuals bearing the overabundant phenotype exhibited reduced reproductive output, which helped to move colony compositions back towards their site-specific optima. Colonies displaced from their native sites continued to recreate the patterns of reproductive output that characterized their site of origin, suggesting a genetic component to this trait. Individuals thus appear to adaptively cull their reproductive output depending on their phenotype and the composition of their colony. There is also considerable parent-offspring colony resemblance in the extent to which colonies can or do track their ideal compositions. This conveys a kind of collective heritability to this trait. Together, while group selection appears to be the principal driver of ongoing selection on group composition in A. studiosus, patterns of selection among individuals within groups appear to promote colonies' ability to track their ideal mixtures.

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Section: Policing Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 96%

Intense group selection selects for ideal group compositions, but selection within groups maintains them

2017

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“…studiosus colonies containing recently matured females were collected at four field sites in May 2015: Melton Hill, Tennessee (high resource), IC King, Tennessee (low resource), Chilhowee, Tennessee (high resource), Cheoah, Virginia (low resource; see Pruitt & Goodnight 2014 for site details). For all sites we focused on recently matured females because both aggressive and docile phenotypes (see below) are less aggressive as juveniles ), but more aggressive when gravid or guarding egg cases (Watts, Ross, & Jones, 2015); using only recently matured females allowed us to avoid potentially confounding effects of age and reproductive state on behavioral measures. We determined age by carefully monitoring populations' phenology to ensure we conducted behavioral assays at the moment individual differences were most pronounced, and when we could hold most other variables constant.…”

Section: Colony Collection and Lab Maintenancementioning

confidence: 99%

Social context, but not individual personality, alters immigrant viability in a spider with mixed social structure

et al. 2016

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Immigrant viability is a major determinant of the realized rate of gene flow across populations. For social organisms, the social context in which immigrants disperse across contrasting environments may have important implications for their viability post dispersal. Here, we use social spiders, which vary in individual personality as well as the group personality compositions across sites, to test if the strength of selection against immigrants (i.e., mortality rates) differs depending on whether spiders are transplanted i) as individuals and remain alone, ii) join preexisting colonies at their new non-native environment, or iii) move with their native group. We also tested for an effect of individual personality on survival. We found that social context, and not individual personality, affects individual survival in foreign environments with contrasting resource levels. Individuals that were transplanted with their native groups suffer higher mortality rates compared to individuals transplanted as singletons, regardless of whether or not they are assimilated into native colonies. Moving as individuals could thus provide an avenue for ongoing gene flow among populations from different resource environments. We found no depressed performance of control colonies that were transplanted across sites with resource levels similar to colonies' site of origin. These results are at odds with the intuition that dispersing as a group should generally enhance the viability of immigrants, at least in social species. We propose that these results could be explained by a mismatch in the ideal group compositions (personality compositions) favored in different environments, despite a lack of selection on individual personality traits. These results provide a first glimpse into the relative roles of individual personality and social context in mediating gene flow among populations from divergent environments.

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“…While our colonies had an accelerated phenology, we showed that this does not impact their performance 1 . Aggressiveness varies with temperature 14 and gravidity 15 in A. studiosus, which could be problematic. Thankfully, rank order aggressiveness is maintained in spite of this plasticity 14 , thus allowing reliable assignment of either phenotype.…”

Section: Is Unfoundedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given recent high-profile exchanges over the relative importance of group selection 14,15 , such a paper would be a significant contribution to the field. Unfortunately, we do not believe that the paper of Pruitt and Goodnight 1 is such a study.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Group selection versus group adaptation

Gardner¹

2015

Nature

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Diel and life-history characteristics of personality: consistency versus flexibility in relation to ecological change

Cited by 20 publications

References 47 publications

Intense group selection selects for ideal group compositions, but selection within groups maintains them

Intense group selection selects for ideal group compositions, but selection within groups maintains them

Social context, but not individual personality, alters immigrant viability in a spider with mixed social structure

Group selection versus group adaptation

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