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Article Dans Une Revue Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Année : 2006

Kin discrimination and altruism in the larvae of a solitary insect

Résumé

Kin selection theory predicts altruism between related individuals, which requires the ability to recognize kin from non-kin. In insects, kin discrimination associated with altruistic behaviour is well-known in clonal and social species but in very few solitary insects. Here, we report that the solitary larvae of a non-social insect Aleochara bilineata Gyll. (Coleoptera; Staphylinidae) show kin discrimination and sibling-directed altruistic behaviour. Larvae superparasitize more frequently the hosts parasitized by non-kin individuals than those hosts parasitized by siblings. Kin discrimination probably occurs by self-referent phenotype matching, where an individual compares its own phenotype with that of a non-familiar related individual, a mechanism rarely demonstrated in animals. The label used to recognize kin from non-kin corresponds to substances contained in the plug placed on the hosts by the resident larvae during the parasitization process. Kin competition induced by a limited larval dispersion may have favoured the evolution of kin recognition in this solitary species

Dates et versions

hal-02656779 , version 1 (30-05-2020)

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Anne Lizé, Dominique Carval, A.M. Cortesero, Sylvain Fournet, Denis Poinsot. Kin discrimination and altruism in the larvae of a solitary insect. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2006, 273, pp.2381-2386. ⟨10.1098/rspb.2006.3598⟩. ⟨hal-02656779⟩
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