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Eavesdropping on cooperative communication within an ant-butterfly mutualism

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Abstract

Signalling is necessary for the maintenance of interspecific mutualisms but is vulnerable to exploitation by eavesdropping. While eavesdropping of intraspecific signals has been studied extensively, such exploitation of interspecific signals has not been widely documented. The juvenile stages of the Australian lycaenid butterfly, Jalmenus evagoras, form an obligate association with several species of attendant ants, including Iridomyrmex mayri. Ants protect the caterpillars and pupae, and in return are rewarded with nutritious secretions. Female and male adult butterflies use ants as signals for oviposition and mate searching, respectively. Our experiments reveal that two natural enemies of J. evagoras, araneid spiders and braconid parasitoid wasps, exploit ant signals as cues for increasing their foraging and oviposition success, respectively. Intriguingly, selection through eavesdropping is unlikely to modify the ant signal.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Bill Piel for identifying the spiders and the Australian Research Council (DP120100162) for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Mark A. Elgar

  2. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    David R. Nash

  3. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

    Naomi E. Pierce

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  1. Mark A. Elgar
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  2. David R. Nash
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Correspondence to Mark A. Elgar.

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Communicated by: Sven Thatje

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Elgar, M.A., Nash, D.R. & Pierce, N.E. Eavesdropping on cooperative communication within an ant-butterfly mutualism. Sci Nat 103, 84 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-016-1409-5

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