ArticleEcology letters2026
Group Size Dependent Selection for Cooperation Versus Freeloading in Collective Chemical Defence.
Article in Ecology letters, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Group Size Dependent Selection for Cooperation Versus Freeloading in Collective Chemical Defence.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- High detectability costs select weak warning signals in chemically defended gregarious prey.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cooperation in public goods is expected to evolve more rapidly in smaller groups than in larger groups because individuals receive a larger share of the benefits, reducing the benefits of freeloading. However, experimental evidence for this hypothesis remains limited to microorganisms, restricting our understanding of the evolution of cooperative traits. Here, we show that in the collectively defending larvae of Neodiprion sertifer, survival against predation is higher in cooperative groups, with benefits of cooperation more pronounced in small groups (5 larvae) than in large groups (20 larvae). Individuals also participate less in collective defence in larger groups, not because of higher life-history costs resulting from increased resource competition but because they adjust their contribution according to group size. These results provide novel empirical evidence that selection for cooperation in collective goods is group size-dependent, promoting cooperation in smaller groups, whereas the relative fitness of freeloaders is higher in larger groups.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.