Towards understanding the evolution of workforce organization in social spiders

理解社交蜘蛛劳动力组织的演变

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-06951
• 负责人: Pruitt, Jonathan
• 金额: $ 3.42万
• 依托单位: McMaster University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=689606
• 关键词: Towards; understanding; evolution; workforce; organization

Discussions of division of labor form the basis of much of the literate on social evolution in invertebrates. Division of Labor is a kind of workforce organization where individuals specialize on a subset of the maintenance tasks required for group function. High levels of individual task specialization are argued to be beneficial because specialists are predicted outperform generalists at their respective tasks, and groups composed of diverse sets of specialized individuals are predicted to outperform homogeneous groups. The benefits of division labor are likely best documented in the eusocial insects, however, the available data suggest division of labor can enhance the performance of non-eusocial groups and even pairs of individuals engaged in cooperative biparental care. In spite of its intuitive appeal, some researchers have argued that task specialization and enhanced division of labor might not always be favored, and that aspects of workforce organization like dynamic task switching may be more important determinants of social group success. This may be particularly true in environments where the demands imposed on colonies vary widely through time. Using six independently evolved lineages of social spiders from across the Anelosimus (New World) and Stegodyphus (Old World) genera, we propose to 1) characterize patterns of workforce organization in natural and experimental colonies, 2) test for associations between individuals' traits and their task performance profiles, 3) examine the degree to which between-group differences in workforce organization are linked to group success and how these relationships change based on the surrounding habitat (e.g., lowland rain forests vs. cloud forests), 4) probe how workforces change their patterns of task performance in response to shifts in ecological demands, and 5) scrutinize the role of self-organization in generating the patterns of workforce organization seen in social spiders. The proposed studies will critically evaluate the adaptive significance of division of labor versus other aspects of workforce organization in contrasting environments in a manner rarely achievable. For their part, these social spiders represent are extraordinarily tractable and well vetted system for conducting the proposed studies.

对劳动分工的讨论构成了许多无脊椎动物社会进化知识的基础。分工是一种劳动力组织，其中个人专门从事群体职能所需的维护任务的子集。高水平的个人任务专业化被认为是有益的，因为预计专家在各自的任务上会胜过通才，而由不同专业个体组成的群体预计会胜过同质群体。分工的好处可能在真社会性昆虫中得到了最好的记录，然而，现有数据表明，分工可以提高非真社会性群体的表现，甚至可以提高参与合作双亲照顾的个体的表现。尽管其直观的吸引力，一些研究人员认为，任务专业化和加强劳动分工可能并不总是受到青睐，劳动力组织的各个方面（如动态任务切换）可能是社会群体成功的更重要决定因素。在对殖民地的要求随时间变化很大的环境中尤其如此。利用来自 Anelosimus（新世界）和 Stegodyphus（旧世界）属的六个独立进化的社交蜘蛛谱系，我们建议 1）表征自然和实验群体中劳动力组织的模式，2）测试个体特征与其任务绩效概况之间的关联，3）检查劳动力组织中的群体间差异与群体成功相关的程度以及这些关系如何根据周围环境而变化 栖息地（例如，低地雨林与云雾森林），4）探讨劳动力如何改变其任务绩效模式以应对生态需求的变化，5）仔细研究自组织在产生社交蜘蛛中所见的劳动力组织模式中的作用。拟议的研究将以一种难以实现的方式批判性地评估对比环境中劳动分工与劳动力组织其他方面的适应性意义。 就其本身而言，这些社交蜘蛛代表了非常容易处理且经过严格审查的系统，用于进行拟议的研究。