The Evolutionary Interplay of Social Behavior, Resource Use and Anti-Predator Behavior in Zetoborinae+ Blaberinae+Gyninae+Diplopterinae Cockroaches: A Phylogenetic Analysis.

Theories of social evolution in cockroaches have mainly referred to hypotheses of evolutionary relationship between resource use and social system. The use of particular resources, such as scattered and enclosed habitat, was hypothesized to have favored evolution toward presociality or subsociality. A phylogenetic test of these hypotheses is carried out using the clade (Zetoborinae+ Blaberinae+Gyninae+Diplopterinae). Phylogenetic patterns of habitat use, social systems and anti-predator behavior are inferred and compared to previous evolutionary hypotheses. There is much heterobathmy concerning these three attributes and five evolutionary paths are inferred which weakly corroborate the hypothesis of evolutionary relationship between resource use and social system. Anti-predator behavior also appears to be possibly related evolutionarily to social systems.