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A Conflict Model of Reward-seeking Behavior in Male Rats
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Self-sacrifice in 'desperado' contests between relatives.

Adam L Cronin1, Thibaud Monnin

  • 1Laboratoire Écologie & Évolution CNRS UMR 7625 Université Pierre et Marie Curie 7 quai St Bernard, Bâtiment A 75 252 Paris, France. adamcronin@gmail.com.

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In social insects, queens may avoid fighting over colony ownership, even if it means death. This is because relatedness can make it selectively advantageous to concede, preserving inclusive fitness.

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Social Insect Behavior

Background:

  • Intra-specific competition can escalate to dangerous overt fighting when contest value is high.
  • The 'desperado effect' describes situations where fighting is likely due to high stakes and limited future options.
  • Social insect colonies, particularly queen contests, represent high-value situations where this effect may occur.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To model the decision-making process in contests between related social insect queens.
  • To investigate the role of inclusive fitness in the evolution of fighting behavior.
  • To determine conditions under which avoiding conflict is selectively advantageous, even with lethal risks.

Main Methods:

  • Development of a simple mathematical model based on social insect queen contests.
  • Analysis of the trade-offs between direct fitness (colony inheritance) and indirect fitness (inclusive fitness).
  • Inclusion of parameters for relatedness between contestants and the risk of mutual destruction during fighting.

Main Results:

  • The model demonstrates that conceding a contest can be selectively advantageous when inclusive fitness is at risk.
  • High relatedness between contestants can favor avoiding fights that carry a risk of mutual death.
  • Even when not fighting leads to death, preserving inclusive fitness can outweigh the potential gains from fighting.

Conclusions:

  • In social insects, the potential for indirect fitness gains through relatives can inhibit fighting, even in high-value contests.
  • The risk of losing all inclusive fitness (through mutual death) can make conceding a fight the evolutionarily stable strategy.
  • Inclusive fitness considerations are crucial for understanding the evolution of conflict resolution in social species.