A history of susceptibility to parasites and divergence in solitary, gregarious and agonistic behaviors of embiopterans

Two species of Haploembia Ramburi (Oligotomidae: Embioptera), non-native detritivores found in the western USA, display solitary tendencies, not typical for webspinners that usually share silk galleries. Reports from the 1960’s based on native populations in Italy highlighted the impact of a gregarine parasite that depressed male sterility and female survivorship in Haploembia solieri (Rambur). Sympatric asexual H. tarsalis (Ross) lives a normal lifespan when parasitized, albeit suffering from reduced fecundity. Our goal is to characterize behavioral repertoires as individuals interact and to develop methods for future investigations focused on the impact of the little-known parasite. We quantified individual responses to conspecifics or other species in 10-minute dyadic interactions and, in a 3-day trial, determined whether they aggregated when given dispersed resources. Replicated groups of four H. solieri or H. tarsalis settled away from each other over the 3-day trials. In 10-min bouts of same or different species pairs, focal insects bolted back, retreated and attempted to escape when they encountered one another, especially when the opponent was H. tarsalis. Males courted conspecific females, but were dramatically repelled by H. tarsalis. Serving as a positive control, Oligotoma nigra (Hagen) (Oligotomidae) paired with conspecifics displayed typical webspinner behaviors by sitting together, sharing silk. Haploembia solieri males did not respond negatively to O. nigra, not known to be parasitized by the gregarine, but did so when paired with H. tarsalis. These results align with the prediction that susceptibility to parasitism may have led to antisocial behaviors observed in the two Haploembia species.