Short and long-term costs of inbreeding in the lifelong-partnership in a termite

Abstract

Social life and lifelong partner commitments are expected to favor thorough partner choice, as an ill-suited partnership may have long-term consequences, adversely affecting the parents and spanning several cohorts of offspring. Here, we used ~1400 termite incipient colonies to estimate the short- and long-term costs of inbreeding upon the survival of the parents over a 15-month period, their productivity, and the resistance of their offspring toward pathogen pressure. We observed that foundation success was not influenced by the relatedness of partners, but by their levels of microbial load. We showed faster growth in inbred colonies with low levels of microbial load, revealing a potential tradeoff between pathogen defense and offspring production. Yet, inbreeding takes its toll later in colony development when offspring from incipient colonies face pathogen pressure. Although the success of a lifetime partnership is initially determined by the partner’s health, the cost of inbreeding in incipient colonies favors outbred colonies reaching maturity.

Termites as human foods—A comprehensive review

“…The caste type and fitness of a pair of insects collected in the wild as a founding colony needs to be considered. In line with that, inbreeding is significantly influenced by the founding colony (Eyer & Vargo, 2022). Moreover, Vargo (2019) also discussed that some termite species maintain their colonies, led by the original king and queen (a royal pair derived from alates), for the duration of their existence.…”

“…Termite diet and feeding preferences have previously been studied (Barbosa‐Silva & Vasconcellos, 2019; Jacob et al., 2022; Ngee et al., 2004; Patel et al., 2020). Besides, strategies for potential issues, such as diseases, contaminants, and predators, should be addressed (Kim et al., 2019), as well as termite behaviors toward pathogens or suboptimal diets (Aguero et al., 2019; Eyer & Vargo, 2022; Mullins et al., 2021; Yanagawa et al., 2008). Principally, achieving a disease‐free rearing system requires the identification and documentation of the major pathogens that might cause colony collapse when rearing certain insect species, as well as the development of techniques for quality control to prevent contamination (Kelemu et al., 2015).…”

Pervasive relaxed selection in termite genomes

“…Therefore, if we consider the colony as the basic unit of the population rather than individual termites (as in [34,[54][55][56]), when primary (alate-derived) reproductives disperse and breed, purging could occur by the failure of colonies established by unfit offspring. Indeed, there is evidence that closely related primary reproductives establish colonies less frequently than non-related primary reproductives as a result of inbreeding depression [57] (but see [58][59][60][61]). This hypothesis requires further investigation.…”

Pervasive relaxed selection in termite genomes

“…Therefore, if considering the colony as the basic unit of the population rather than individual termites (as in [33,[54][55][56], when primary (alatederived) reproductives disperse and breed, purging could occur by the failure of colonies established by unfit offspring. Indeed, there is evidence that closely related primary reproductives establish colonies less frequently than non-related primary reproductives, as a result of inbreeding depression [57] (but see [58][59][60][61]). This hypothesis requires further investigation.…”