Dyadic behavioural interactions in cockroaches (Blaberidae): ecomorphological and evolutionary implications

Abstract

Few studies have assessed the relative importance of morphological, ecological and phylogenetic factors in the evolution of social behaviour. We examine the role of these factors in social evolution among blaberid cockroaches. We first analyse and compare behavioural interactions in 13 species. We then ask how the nature of these interactions relates to body shape, phylogeny and habitat. We showed that, although these cockroaches display diverse behavioural interactions, a structure in these data exists with some species clustering together. We found that similarity in social interactions was related to species body shape, but not to ecology or phylogenetic relationships. We suggest that body shape plays an important role in the evolution of social behaviour and that this factor should be investigated further in future analyses.

Origins of old lineages in New Caledonia: A geologically informed test of the island‐hopping hypothesis

“…Instead, the neotropical Eurycotiinae, whose position is consistent with previous phylogenetic works (e.g. Legendre et al, 2015, but contra Bourguignon et al, 2018), would have dispersed from Asia, like the two African clades, during the Cretaceous. We refrain, however, from discussing further biogeographical implications at the deepest nodes of our phylogeny because of a few weakly supported nodes, which might impact biogeographical reconstructions (e.g.…”

“…Instead, the neotropical Eurycotiinae, whose position is consistent with previous phylogenetic works (e.g. Legendre et al, 2015, but contra Bourguignon et al, 2018, would have dispersed from Asia, like the two African clades, during the Cretaceous.…”

“…To address the knowledge gap about the origin of 'old' lineages in NC, we use the geologically informed context to formally test the island-hopping hypothesis on two cockroach families: Blattidae and Tryonicidae. The most recent phylogenetic studies suggest that these families are sister taxa and that their MRCA would date from the Early Cretaceous, or alternatively, to the Late Triassic (e.g., 130-140 Ma in Bourguignon et al, 2018 andEvangelista et al, 2019; 230 Ma in Legendre et al, 2015). The family Blattidae comprises 53 extant genera with a worldwide distribution (Princis, 1966;Grandcolas, 1996Grandcolas, , 1997Beccaloni, 2014;Liao et al, 2019), while the family Tryonicidae comprises only two extant genera known from NC only (genus Lauraesilpha Grandcolas, 1997) and from NC and Australia (genus Tryonicus Shaw, 1925).…”

When Darwin’s Special Difficulty Promotes Diversification in Insects

“…We followed Brune and Dietrich (2015) to distinguish Termitidae (entirely prokaryotic microbiota), Cryptocercus + other termites (cellulolytic flagellates), and the remaining Dictyoptera (no specialized microbiota for lignocellulose digestion). All these coding schemes are imperfect because, like any broad categorization process, they might oversimplify the reality found in nature (Legendre et al 2015a;Goutte et al 2016). The category 'remaining Dictyoptera' in the latter coding scheme, for instance, is imperfect because it is delineated by default and because of a lack of information for some cockroach species.…”

The evolution of sociality in termites from cockroaches: A taxonomic and phylogenetic perspective

“…Although necessary to ease communication, social categories as proposed by the authors suffer from two major limitations. First, these categories are either too broad or too constraining to accurately reflect the behavioral interactions observed in nature (Doody, Burghardt, & Dinets, ; Lacey & Sherman, ; Legendre et al., , ; Shellman‐Reeve, ; Wcislo, , ). This drawback of the categorization process has also been underlined in other typologies (e.g., Bosch & De la Riva, ; Goutte et al., , ; Grandcolas, Nattier, Legendre, & Pellens, ; Robillard, Höbel, & Gerhardt, ).…”