Abstract
In mutualistic interactions, partners obtain a net benefit, but there may also be costs associated with the provision of benefits for a partner. The question of whether aphids suffer such costs when attended by ants has been raised in previous work. Transgenerational effects, where offspring phenotypes are adjusted based on maternal influences, could be important in the mutualistic interaction between aphids and ants, in particular because aphids have telescoping generations where two offspring generations can be present in a mature aphid. We investigated the immediate and transgenerational influence of ant tending on aphid life history and reproduction by observing the interaction between the facultative myrmecophile Aphis fabae and the ant Lasius niger over 13 aphid generations in the laboratory. We found that the effect of ant tending changes dynamically over successive aphid generations after the start of tending. Initially, total aphid colony weight, aphid adult weight and aphid embryo size decreased compared with untended aphids, consistent with a cost of ant association, but these differences disappeared within four generations of interaction. We conclude that transgenerational effects are important in the aphid–ant interactions and that the costs for aphids of being tended by ants can vary over generations.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-013-2659-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Mutualism is often described as an interaction between species that benefits all participants (Boucher et al 1982) and where each organism increases its fitness by utilizing services of the partner species
Transgenerational effects, where offspring phenotypes are adjusted based on maternal influences, could be important in the mutualistic interaction between aphids and ants, in particular because aphids have telescoping generations where two offspring generations can be present in a mature aphid
We investigated the immediate and transgenerational influence of ant tending on aphid life history and reproduction by observing the interaction between the facultative myrmecophile Aphis fabae and the ant Lasius niger over 13 aphid generations in the laboratory
Summary
Mutualism is often described as an interaction between species that benefits all participants (Boucher et al 1982) and where each organism increases its fitness by utilizing services of the partner species. To varying degrees, cooperation and conflict both play a part in supposedly mutualistic interactions (Herre et al 1999), involving phenomena such as punishment, sanctions, and coercion (Raihani et al 2012). A division of mutualistic interactions into categories is important because investing resources is costly and is only expected to occur if it increases the benefit received by the investing organism from its partners. The question of costs of mutualism has long been part of the study of the ecological dynamics of these interactions, and the impression is that such costs
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