Co-foundress confinement elicits kinship effects in a naturally sub-social parasitoid

Kinship among interacting individuals is often associated with sociality and also with sex ratio effects. Parasitoids in the bethylid genus Goniozus are sub-social, with single foundress females exhibiting post-ovipositional maternal care via short-term aggressive host and brood defence against conspecific females. Due to local mate competition (LMC) and broods normally being produced by a single foundress, sex ratios are female biased. Contests between adult females are, however, not normally fatal and aggression is reduced when competing females are kin, raising the possibility of multi-foundress reproduction on some hosts. Here we screen for further life-history effects of kinship by varying the numbers and relatedness of foundresses confined together with a host resource and also by varying the size of host. We confined groups of 1 to 8 Goniozus nephantidis females together with a host for 5+ days. Multi-foundress groups were either all siblings or all non-siblings. Our chief expect...