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...相互作用个体间的亲缘关系，通常与社会性以及性比效应密切相关。肿腿蜂科（Bethylidae）角额肿腿蜂属（Goniozus）的寄生蜂具有亚社会性，单个建群雌蜂会在产卵后通过短期的攻击性寄主防御与育幼保护行为，抵御同种雌蜂的侵扰。由于局部交配竞争（local mate competition, LMC）以及通常情况下蜂群仅由单个建群雌蜂繁育，其种群性比呈现偏雌特征。不过，成虫雌蜂间的争斗通常不会致命，且当竞争雌蜂为亲缘个体时，攻击行为会有所减弱，这提示部分寄主上可能存在多建群雌蜂共同繁育的情况。本研究通过调控与寄主资源共同饲养的建群雌蜂数量及亲缘关系，同时改变寄主大小，以进一步探究亲缘关系对该蜂生活史的影响。我们将1至8头椰心叶甲寄生蜂（Goniozus nephantidis）雌蜂组成不同组群，与单个寄主共同饲养5天以上。多建群雌蜂组群要么全部为同胞个体，要么全部为非同胞个体。本研究的主要预期……