Breeders are less active foragers than non-breeders in wild Damaraland mole-rats

Francioli, Yannick, Thorley, Jack ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8426-610X, Finn, Kyle, Clutton-Brock, Tim and Zöttl, Markus (2020) Breeders are less active foragers than non-breeders in wild Damaraland mole-rats. Biology Letters, 16 (10). ISSN 1744-9561

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Abstract

Eusocial societies are characterized by a clear division of labour between non-breeding workers and breeding queens, and queens often do not contribute to foraging, defence and other maintenance tasks. It has been suggested that the structure and organization of social mole-rat groups resembles that of eusocial insect societies. However, the division of labour has rarely been investigated in wild mole-rats, and it is unknown whether breeders show decreased foraging activity compared with non-breeding helpers in natural groups. Here, we show that, in wild Damaraland mole-rats (Fukomys damarensis), breeders show lower activity in foraging areas than non-breeding group members. Both breeders and non-breeders displayed variation in activity across the different seasons. Our results suggest that group living allows social mole-rat breeders to reduce their investment in energetically costly behaviour, or alternatively, that the high cost of reproduction in this species forces a behavioural trade-off against foraging investment.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	bio-logging,cooperative breeding,division of labour,helping,reproductive skew,social behaviour,agricultural and biological sciences (miscellaneous),general agricultural and biological sciences ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1101
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	14 Sep 2026 09:30
Last Modified:	14 Sep 2026 18:20
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/104507
DOI:	10.1098/rsbl.2020.0475

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