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Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps
Biological market theory is potentially useful for understanding helping behaviour in animal societies. It predicts that competition for trading partners will affect the value of commodities exchanged. It has gained empirical support in cooperative breeders, where subordinates help dominant breeders...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286204/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28117836 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13750 |
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author | Grinsted, Lena Field, Jeremy |
author_facet | Grinsted, Lena Field, Jeremy |
author_sort | Grinsted, Lena |
collection | PubMed |
description | Biological market theory is potentially useful for understanding helping behaviour in animal societies. It predicts that competition for trading partners will affect the value of commodities exchanged. It has gained empirical support in cooperative breeders, where subordinates help dominant breeders in exchange for group membership, but so far without considering one crucial aspect: outside options. We find support for a biological market in paper wasps, Polistes dominula. We first show that females have a choice of cooperative partners. Second, by manipulating entire subpopulations in the field, we increase the supply of outside options for subordinates, freeing up suitable nesting spots and providing additional nesting partners. We predicted that by intensifying competition for help, our manipulation would force dominants to accept a lower price for group membership. As expected, subordinates reduce their foraging effort following our treatments. We conclude that to accurately predict the amount of help provided, social units cannot be viewed in isolation: the surrounding market must also be considered. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5286204 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-52862042017-02-22 Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps Grinsted, Lena Field, Jeremy Nat Commun Article Biological market theory is potentially useful for understanding helping behaviour in animal societies. It predicts that competition for trading partners will affect the value of commodities exchanged. It has gained empirical support in cooperative breeders, where subordinates help dominant breeders in exchange for group membership, but so far without considering one crucial aspect: outside options. We find support for a biological market in paper wasps, Polistes dominula. We first show that females have a choice of cooperative partners. Second, by manipulating entire subpopulations in the field, we increase the supply of outside options for subordinates, freeing up suitable nesting spots and providing additional nesting partners. We predicted that by intensifying competition for help, our manipulation would force dominants to accept a lower price for group membership. As expected, subordinates reduce their foraging effort following our treatments. We conclude that to accurately predict the amount of help provided, social units cannot be viewed in isolation: the surrounding market must also be considered. Nature Publishing Group 2017-01-24 /pmc/articles/PMC5286204/ /pubmed/28117836 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13750 Text en Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Grinsted, Lena Field, Jeremy Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps |
title | Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps |
title_full | Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps |
title_fullStr | Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps |
title_full_unstemmed | Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps |
title_short | Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps |
title_sort | market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286204/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28117836 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13750 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT grinstedlena marketforcesinfluencehelpingbehaviourincooperativelybreedingpaperwasps AT fieldjeremy marketforcesinfluencehelpingbehaviourincooperativelybreedingpaperwasps |