Helping niches may trigger the development of task specialization and division of labour

Multimember societies often exhibit Division of labour (DoL), where different individuals perform distinct tasks such as brood care, food acquisition and defence. While demand for tasks exists at the group level, assigning them to specific members poses an organizational challenge. I propose the ‘Helping Niche Specialization hypothesis’ (HeNS hypothesis), which suggests that cues indicating societal demand for tasks along with the current distribution of help, influence individual biases towards specific task preferences. This process may begin during early ontogeny, even before helping behaviours are actively performed. I first introduce the concept of the ‘helping niche’, a special form of the social niche. Next, I outline procedures central to the HeNS hypothesis, which represent a stepwise process: (i) societal and environmental cues bias individuals towards task preferences, which may arise already during early life, (ii) experience with preferred tasks reinforces these biases, (iii) learning-by-doing enhances task performance, and/or (iv) reduced response thresholds make task execution more likely, leading to (v) differentiation and specialization. Furthermore, I discuss the costs and benefits of specialization, how helping niches may emerge during development, the environmental conditions that favour them, and alternative pathways to DoL.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Division of labour as key driver of social evolution’.