Journal ArticleDOI
The rarity of multiple mating by females in the social Hymenoptera
TLDR
Single mating is predominant in this large, evolutionarily and ecologically successful group of social ants, bees, and wasps because it confers higher relatedness among potential workers and the brood they care for.Abstract:
Interest in how often female social insects mate is particularly intense because of its impact on sociality and because of the well-known extreme multiple mating in honeybees. With multiple mating, worker to brood relatedness decreases but worker versus queen interests often converge. The overwhelming majority of species of social ants, bees, and wasps mate only once. Even those species where some females mate multiply typically have effective mate numbers close to one. Ants have effective mate numbers of 1.43, which drops to 1.15 if the advanced fungus growers (2.14) and harvester ants (6.76) are excluded. Honeybees have effective mate numbers of 12.48. Stingless bees and bumblebees have effective mate numbers of only 1.06 and 1.02 respectively. Polistine wasps have effective mate numbers of 1.01. Vespine wasps have effective mate numbers of 1.12 excluding only Vespula which has effective mate numbers of 3.68. Favoring the very low mate numbers we observe for nearly all female social insects is the narrow time window for mating, lack of material gain from males, lack of male ability to harass females (who must move their sting aside to mate in most species), and lack of paternal care. Single mating may be further favored by the apparent lack of any post-copulatory sperm discrimination mechanisms. Leks and male territories, which are common in social insects, make it easier for females to choose the single best mate, further contributing to low mate numbers. Multiple mating is a rare, derived trait in a generally single-mating group. Single mating may have facilitated the origins of sociality in the Hymenoptera because it confers higher relatedness among potential workers and the brood they care for. The rare exceptions to low mate numbers all come from highly social species with single queens, morphological castes, and many workers. Multiple mating might be stable in highly social species because their highly specialized workers have few selfish responses to lowered relatedness. The unusual cases of multiple mating are most likely to be selected for because they increase genetic diversity in the brood, though empirical support for specific genetic diversity hypotheses has proved to be elusive. What is clear is that single mating is predominant in this large, evolutionarily and ecologically successful group.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Conflict resolution in insect societies
TL;DR: Five major areas of reproductive conflict in insect societies are reviewed: (a) sex allocation, (b) queen rearing, (c) male rearing), (d) queen-worker caste fate, and (e) breeding conflicts among totipotent adults.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ancestral Monogamy Shows Kin Selection Is Key to the Evolution of Eusociality
TL;DR: It is found that mating with a single male, which maximizes relatedness, is ancestral for all eight independent eusocial lineages that are investigated, and monogamy was critical in the evolution of eussociality, strongly supporting the prediction of inclusive fitness theory.
Journal ArticleDOI
Genetic diversity in honey bee colonies enhances productivity and fitness
TL;DR: It is shown that swarms from genetically diverse colonies (15 patrilines per colony) founded new colonies faster than swarming from genetically uniform colonies (1 patriline per colony), and accumulated differences in foraging rates, food storage, and population growth led to impressive boosts in the fitness of genetic diverse colonies.
Journal ArticleDOI
Lifetime monogamy and the evolution of eusociality.
TL;DR: Focusing on lifetime monogamy as a universal precondition for the evolution of obligate eusociality simplifies the theory and may help to resolve controversies about levels of selection and targets of adaptation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Genetic diversity within honeybee colonies prevents severe infections and promotes colony growth.
TL;DR: Honeybees investigated to determine whether genetic variation helps to prevent chronic infections, and it is shown that genetically diverse colonies had a lower variance in disease prevalence than genetically similar colonies, suggesting that genetic diversity may benefit colonies by preventing severe infections.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour. I
TL;DR: A genetical mathematical model is described which allows for interactions between relatives on one another's fitness and a quantity is found which incorporates the maximizing property of Darwinian fitness, named “inclusive fitness”.
Book
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TL;DR: In this article, a definitive study of the social structure and symbiotic relationships of termites, social wasps, bees, and ants was conducted. But the authors focused on the relationship between ants and termites.
BookDOI
Female control : sexual selection by cryptic female choice
TL;DR: A growing body of evidence has begun to reveal flaws in the traditional assumption of female passivity and lack of discrimination after copulation has begun as discussed by the authors, and evidence from various fields indicates that such selectivity by females may be the norm rather than the exception.
Book
The Bees of the World
TL;DR: This extensive update of his definitive reference, Charles D. Michener reveals a diverse fauna that numbers more than 17,000 species and ranges from the common honeybee to rare bees that feed on the pollen of a single type of plant.
Book
Sex and evolution.
TL;DR: The relationship between various types of reproduction and the evolutionary process is explored, including the evolutionary development of diverse forms of sexuality, such as anisogamy, hermaphroditism, and the evolution of differences between males and females in reproductive strategy.