Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 368, Issue 1618, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0347
Keywords
Bathyergidae; social evolution; cooperative breeding; African mole-rat; reproductive skew; eusociality
Categories
Funding
- National Research Foundation
- University of Pretoria
- DST-NRF South African Research Chair of Mammal Behavioural Ecology and Physiology award
- BBSRC [BBD5231861]
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Here, we review comparative studies of African mole-rats (family Bathyergidae) to explain how constraints acting at the ultimate (environmental) and proximate (organismal) levels have led to convergent gains and losses of sociality within this extensive adaptive radiation of subterranean rodents endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. At the ultimate level, living in environments that range from mesic through to arid has led to both variation and flexibility in social organization among species, culminating in the pinnacle of social evolution in the eusocial naked and Damaraland mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber and Fukomys damarensis). The common mole-rat (Cryptomys hottentotus) provides a model example of how plasticity in social traits exists within a single species inhabiting areas with different ecological constraint. At the proximate level, reproductive strategies and cooperative breeding may be constrained by the correlated evolution of a suite of traits including physiological suppression of reproduction, the development of physiological and morphological castes, and the mode of ovulatory control and seasonality in breeding. Furthermore, recent neurobiological advances indicate that differential patterns of neurotransmitter expression within the forebrain may underpin (and limit) either a solitary or group living/cooperative lifestyle not only in mole-rats, but also more widely among disparate mammalian taxa.
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