Brood care and social evolution in termites
Brood care and social evolution in termites
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2011.2639
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发表时间：
2012-07-07
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Bagneres, Anne-Genevieve
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Korb, Judith;Buschmann, Michael;Bagneres, Anne-Genevieve
合作育雏被认为是导致社会性的共同驱动因素。虽然这对于社会性膜翅目动物和许多合作繁殖的脊椎动物来说似乎是正确的，但巢穴护理对于白蚁真社会性进化的重要性尚不清楚。阐明这个问题的第一步是评估白蚁的祖先状况。我们通过确定涵盖低等白蚁的系统发育多样性的四种白蚁物种的育雏行为的总体水平来对此进行研究。这三个物种（均来自不同的科）的育雏护理水平较低，它们的祖传生活方式是住在一块木头上，作为食物和住所。在第四种白蚁中，这是一种在觅食之外进化而来的低等白蚁，育雏更为常见。结合高等白蚁的数据，这表明白蚁的育雏护理只有在从木居生活方式转变为觅食生活方式时才变得重要。这些结果表明，白蚁的早期社会进化是由防御能力增强的好处驱动的，而膜翅目动物的真社会性以及鸟类和哺乳动物的合作繁殖则主要基于育雏。
Cooperative brood care is assumed to be the common driving factor leading to sociality. While this seems to be true for social Hymenoptera and many cooperatively breeding vertebrates, the importance of brood care for the evolution of eusociality in termites is unclear. A first step in elucidating this problem is an assessment of the ancestral condition in termites. We investigated this by determining the overall level of brood care behaviour across four termite species that cover the phylogenetic diversity of the lower termites. Brood care was low in the three species (all from different families) that had an ancestral wood-dwelling lifestyle of living in a single piece of wood that serves as food and shelter. In the fourth species, a lower termite that evolved outside foraging, brood care was more common. Together with data for higher termites, this suggests that brood care in termites only becomes important when switching from a wood-dwelling to a foraging lifestyle. These results imply that early social evolution in termites was driven by benefits of increased defence, while eusociality in Hymenoptera and cooperative breeding in birds and mammals are primarily based on brood care.