Inbreeding tolerance in Anelosimus jabaquara (Araneae, Theridiidae)

and its role in the transition to permanent sociality

Diniz, S. ,
1 Gonzaga, M. O.², Sobckzak, J. F.2 & Vasconcellos Neto, J. 1

1 – Departamento de Zoologia, IB, Unicamp, Campinas, Brazil

UNICAMP 2 - Departamento de Ecologia e Biologia Evolutiva, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, Brazil

Financial support: PIBIC/CNPq Fig. 1: Individuals of Anelosimus

jabaquara cooperating in capture of prey
Key–words: inbreeding, sociality, fitness cost, Anelosimus
Introduction
Among social spiders, the transition from periodic to permanent-sociality leads to the increase in the frequency of crosses
between close related individuals. The inbreeding exposes homozygous deleterious alelles to environmental selective
pressures (which may be purged through continued periods of inbreeding), leading to the reduction of individual fitness value in
several periods of their life cycle, what is called inbreeding depression. The study of inbreeding costs in species with
intermediated levels of sociality is a major issue for understanding the evolution of social behavior in spiders. Therefore, the
genus Anelosimus is of special interest for studying inbreeding tolerance, because it includes a large set of degrees of
sociality, being Anelosimus jabaquara a periodic-social species (Fig. 1).
Material and Methods
Females with egg sacs of Anelosimus jabaquara were collected at Serra do Japi, Jundiaí, SP.
1.4
After the hatching of the egg sacs, the spiderlings were raised in laboratory. Before they have
Cephalothorax area

1.2
reached the adulthood, the offspring was divided into two groups for the mating experiments, one
1
composed of 30 full-siblings couples and other of 30 non-relatives couples. The offspring of each
(mm²)

0.8
0.6 female from both experimental groups were raised with patterned feeding and accompanied for
0.4 verifying the inbreeding costs. The traits used to evaluate the inbreeding costs were: fecundity
0.2
(i.e.: number of spiderlings from each egg female) , time of development, survival and growth rates
0
of the young.
0-10

20-40

50-60

80-100

120-140

160-180

200-210

220-230

Results and Discussion

250-270

Non-siblings The number of young varied from one to 29 for the non-relative mating and from 1 to 32 (mean 
Full-siblings Days after hatching sd = 11.5  9.8, n = 9) for the full-sibling mating (mean  sd = 8.5  9.1, n = 13) and no significant
Fig, 2: Mean growth curves of the offspring from full-siblings and non-siblings differences were detected, between experimental groups, in fertility (t = 0.76, df = 20, p = 0.23), in
crosses (Kolmogorov-Smirnov, χ2 = 0.0032 , df = 2, p > 0.05) mean growth curve of the offspring (Fig. 2) and in mortality rate of the same (Fig. 3) until the
100 sexual maturity (which was reached around 200 days after hatching). These results point to low
Proportion of individuals

90 inbreeding fitness costs in the reproductive success and in the development of A. jabaquara,
80
suggesting that this species may have had an evolutionary history of inbreeding and, probably, that
70
60 there is high frequency of inbred crosses in natural population at present. This may be due to
alive

50 some individuals do not disperse, staying in maternal web and mating with relatives. Furthermore,
40
30 the high costs of dispersion may restrict the distance, from the maternal web, reached by the
20 individuals, leading to a philopatric condition and to a structured population, with high probability of
10
inbred crosses. However, the experiment of this work is referent only to the first generation of
0
inbreeding, so the deleterious effect of inbreeding may appear otherwise in the next inbred
0
10
20
40
50
60
80
100
120

generations.
140

160

Non-sibilings
180

200

full-siblings
Days after hatching Conclusions

Fig. 3: Mortality rates of offspring from full-siblings and non-siblings crosses A. jabaquara is tolerant to inbreeding depression, at least in the first generation of inbred crosses,
(Log-rank, 2 = 0.27, df = 1, p = 0.6). what suggest this species has a evolutionary history of inbreeding.