Male cooperation improves their own and kin-group productivity in a group-foraging spider.

ABSTRACT: Cooperation should only evolve if the direct and/or indirect benefits exceed the costs. Hence, cooperators are expected to generate selective benefits for themselves and the kin-group while defectors will impose costs. The subsocial spider, Australomisidia ergandros, shows consistent cooperation and defection tactics while foraging. Cooperative individuals are consistently likely to share prey with other group members whereas defector spiders rarely share the prey they acquired. Here, we assess costs and benefits of cooperation, and the causal determinants behind cooperative and defective phenotypes. We constructed experimental kin-colonies of A. ergandros composed of pure cooperative or defector foragers and show that pure cooperative groups had higher hunting success as they acquired pre

SUBMITTER: Parthasarathy B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9825364 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature