Social evolution in the Lepidoptera: ecological context and communication in larval societies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We review key ecological and behavioral mechanisms underlying the origin and maintenance of larval sociality in the Lepidoptera. Using communication contexts of group defense, cohesion and recruitment as a framework, we relate social complexity among gregarious caterpillars to three patterns of foraging: patch–restricted, nomadic, and central–place. A review of the incidence of larval gregariousness in the Lepidoptera demonstrates that sociality is widespread in the order, occurring in twenty or more families representing thirteen ditrysian superfamilies, and it is likely to have evolved numerous times in response to different selective pressures. We specifically address the role of sociality in larval defense and resource use, with a focus on (1) signal enhancement in communication systems, (2) differential larval vulnerability, and (3) ant association. Larval Lepidoptera experience the greatest likelihood of mortality in the earliest instars; larval sociality enhances defensive and resource–exploitation signals in these instars, positively influencing survivorship and larval growth. Disease, predation and parasitism, nutrition, and inclusive fitness are discussed in terms of costs and benefits of group living. Finally, we identify two areas where additional research will contribute significantly to an understanding of social evolution in the Lepidoptera: (1) comparative phylogenetic studies, using ecological and communicative characters to trace the origins of caterpillar societies and transitions among them, and (2) larval behavior and ecology, focusing on kin discrimination abilities, assessment of colony genetic structure, and most importantly on the means and contexts of caterpillar communication.
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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 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 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".