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Why are There No Eusocial Fishes?

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Abstract

Eusociality is the form of animal social organization with a reproductive division of labor, most prominently known from ants and bees. Here I ask the question why this enormously successful form of social organization is missing in the largest and most diverse group of vertebrates, the teleost fishes. I first briefly review the phylogenetic distribution and likely evolutionary origins of eusociality. Then, after an equally very brief review of the diverse life history strategies of teleosts, I conclude that it is not the lack of evolutionary pre-adaptations which is keeping teleosts from becoming eusocial. Rather, I argue, that the absence of eusocial fish is caused by a number of differences between aquatic (chiefly marine) and terrestrial ecosystems: (1) Greater offspring dispersal in aquatic ecosystems reduces the role of kin-selection. (2) Lesser predictability of the environment at larger timescales in marine ecosystems disfavors eusociality. (3) A briefer impact of resource pulses in aquatic ecosystems will cause less evolutionary pressure towards cooperation, and eventually eusociality. Finally, I conclude by predicting that the most likely places to find eusocial fishes will be the deep-water regions of the ocean and the African rift lakes.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Drs. Robert R. Warner and Sasha Mikheyev for helpful discussion and the reviewers of the first version of this manuscript for valuable input and pointers to relevant literature.

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  1. University of Western Sydney, MARCS Institute, Bioelectronics and Neuroscience, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia

    Klaus M. Stiefel

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Correspondence to Klaus M. Stiefel.

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Stiefel, K.M. Why are There No Eusocial Fishes?. Biol Theory 7, 204–210 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-012-0059-x

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