10.5061/DRYAD.M592P4G
Pruitt, Jonathan N.
University of California, Santa Barbara
McEwen, Brendan L.
McMaster University
Cassidy, Steven T.
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Najm, Gabriella M.
University of California Los Angeles
Pinter-Wollman, Noa
University of California Los Angeles
Data from: Experimental evidence of frequency-dependent selection on group
behaviour
Dryad
dataset
2019
2019-03-28T16:42:42Z
2019-03-28T16:42:42Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0852-z
46292 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Evolutionary ecologists often seek to identify the mechanisms maintaining
intraspecific variation. In social animals, whole groups can exhibit
between-group differences in their collective traits. We examined whether
negative frequency-dependent selection (i.e., a rare-type advantage) could
help to maintain between-group variation. We engineered neighborhoods of
social spider colonies bearing bold or shy foraging phenotypes and
monitored their fecundity in situ. We found that bold colonies enjoyed a
rare-type advantage that is lost as the frequency of bold colonies in a
neighborhood increases. The success of shy colonies was not
frequency-dependent. These dynamics appear driven by a foraging advantage
of bold colonies that is lost in bold neighborhoods because prey become
scarce, and shy colonies perform better than bold colonies under
low-resource conditions. Thus, to understand selection on collective
traits, it is insufficient to examine groups in isolation. One must
consider the phenotypic environment in which groups reside and compete.
Dryad_Frequency Histogram Data