SCIENTIFIC MEETING ALTERNATIVE REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES IN ANIMAL SOCIETIES

Helpers in primitively eusocial and cooperatively breeding animal societies forfeit their own reproduction to rear the offspring of a queen or breeding pair, but may eventually attain breeding status themselves. A conspicuous general feature of such societies is the enormous variation between individuals in behaviour. Initial attempts to understand this variation focused on variation in genetic relatedness as an explanatory variable, but with mixed results. I will discuss an alternative explanation based on the fundamental trade-off between current and future fitness, including the results of experimental tests. The conclusion is that variation in social traits is best understood from a life-history perspective