Cooperative breeding increases reproductive success in the social spider Stegodyphus dumicola (Araneae, Eresidae)

Sociality in some birds, mammals, and social insects was suggested to have evolved through the lengthening and extension of parental care behaviors to nondirect descendents. In these systems, group members care for young cooperatively and, thus, increase the reproductive success of the breeders and fitness of the young. Parental care behaviors, such as regurgitation feeding and matriphagy (consumption of the mother), occur in several subsocial and social spiders. However, it is not known whether females in a colony cooperate in caring for the young of other females and whether such cooperative care improves reproductive success. To answer this question, we created experimental colonies of the social spider Stegodyphus dumicola (Araneae, Eresidae), allowing only one female in a group to produce young, simulating reproductive skew occurring in nests in nature. In this paper, we show for the first time that females of S. dumicola cooperate in providing regurgitated food for young of other females and are even eaten by those young. Young raised by a group of females were larger and had greater survival than young raised only by their mother. Thus, fitness benefits from raising broods cooperatively may have favored the evolution of sociality in spiders.