First- and second-order sociality determine survival and reproduction in cooperative cichlids.

ABSTRACT: Cooperative breeders serve as a model to study the evolution of cooperation, where costs and benefits of helping are typically scrutinized at the level of group membership. However, cooperation is often observed in multi-level social organizations involving interactions among individuals at various levels. Here, we argue that a full understanding of the adaptive value of cooperation and the evolution of complex social organization requires identifying the effect of different levels of social organization on direct and indirect fitness components. Our long-term field data show that in the cooperatively breeding, colonial cichlid fish Neolamprologus pulcher, both large group size and high colony density significantly raised group persistence. Neither group size nor density affected survival

SUBMITTER: Jungwirth A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4685815 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature