The ecology of sex explains patterns of helping in arthropod societies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Across arthropod societies, sib-rearing (e.g. nursing or nest defence) may be provided by females, by males or by both sexes. According to Hamilton's 'haplodiploidy hypothesis', this diversity reflects the relatedness consequences of diploid vs. haplodiploid inheritance. However, an alternative 'preadaptation hypothesis' instead emphasises an interplay of ecology and the co-option of ancestral, sexually dimorphic traits for sib-rearing. The preadaptation hypothesis has recently received empirical support, but remains to be formalised. Here, we mathematically model the coevolution of sex-specific helping and sex allocation, contrasting these hypotheses. We find that ploidy per se has little effect. Rather, the ecology of sex shapes patterns of helping: sex-specific preadaptation strongly influences who helps; a freely adjustable sex ratio magnifies sex biases and promotes helping; and sib-mating, promiscuity, and reproductive autonomy also modulate the sex and abundance of helpers. An empirical survey reveals that patterns of sex-specific helping in arthropod taxa are consistent with the preadaptation hypothesis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".