Eusociality through conflict dissolution via maternal reproductive specialization

Jorge Peña and Mauricio González-Forero

No 20-110, IAST Working Papers from Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST)

Abstract: Major evolutionary transitions have produced higher-level individuals constituting new levels of adaptation with extensive effects on the history of life. How such transitions occur remains an outstanding question. We show that a major transition can happen from ancestral exploitation triggering specialization that eventually dissolves conflict. Specifically, maternal manipulation of off-spring help enables the mother to increase her fertility effort, thereby shifting a parent-offspring conflict over helping to parent-offspring agreement. This process of conflict dissolution requires that helpers alleviate maternal life history trade-offs, and results in reproductive division of labor, high queen fertility, and honest queen signaling suppressing worker reproduction, thus exceptionally recovering diverse features of eusociality. Our results explain how a major evolutionary transition can happen from ancestral conflict.

Date: 2020-09
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