Task syndromes: linking personality and task allocation in social animal groups

Abstract

Studies of eusocial insects have extensively investigated two components of task allocation: how individuals distribute themselves among different tasks in a colony and how the distribution of labor changes to meet fluctuating task demand. While discrete age- and morphologically-based task allocation systems explain much of the social order in these colonies, the basis for task allocation in non-eusocial organisms and within eusocial castes remains unknown. Building from recent advances in the study of among-individual variation in behavior (i.e., animal personalities), we explore a potential mechanism by which individuality in behaviors unrelated to tasks can guide the developmental trajectories that lead to task specialization. We refer to the task-based behavioral syndrome that results from the correlation between the antecedent behavioral tendencies and task participation as a task syndrome. In this review, we present a framework that integrates concepts from a long history of task allocation research in eusocial organisms with recent findings from animal personality research to elucidate how task syndromes and resulting task allocation might manifest in animal groups. By drawing upon an extensive and diverse literature to evaluate the hypothesized framework, this review identifies future areas for study at the intersection of social behavior and animal personality.

Keywords: division of labor; personality; social behavior; task allocation.

Figure 1

Framework outlining conceptual connections and feedback loops reviewed in this manuscript. Numbered arrows correspond to numbered sections in the main text. Previous research has focused on the connections between sociality, among-individual variation in task-independent behavioral tendencies and group success, and those between task specialization/proficiency, task allocation, and group success. We urge future research to investigate how among-individual variation in task-independent behaviors can lead to group success, and specifically examine if it is through functionally advantageous task allocation. The overarching feedback loop that connects all of these concepts has yet to be fully studied in any social system. We suggest that among-individual variation in task-independent behavioral types and subsequent task syndromes provide a pathway that connects sociality to task allocation.