The independent origin of a queen number bottleneck that promotes cooperation in the African swarm-founding wasp, Polybioides tabidus |
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Authors: | M T Henshaw J E Strassmann D C Queller |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, P.O. Box 1892 Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA e-mail: henshawm@ent.umass.edu Tel.: (413) 545-2283, Fax: (413) 545-0231, US;(2) Department of Entomology, 102 Fernald Hall, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-2410, USA , US |
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Abstract: | When cooperation is based on shared genetic interests, as in most social insect colonies, mechanisms which increase the genetic
similarity of group members may help to maintain sociality. Such mechanisms can be especially important in colonies with many
queens because within-colony relatedness drops quickly as queen number increases. Using microsatellite markers, we examined
the Old World, multiple-queen, swarm-founding wasp Polybioides tabidus which belongs to the ropalidiine tribe, and found that relatedness among the workers was four times higher than what would
be expected based on queen number alone. Relatedness was elevated by a pattern of queen production known as cyclical oligogyny,
under which, queen number varies, and daughter queens are produced only after the number of old queens has reduced to one
or a very few. As a result, the queens are highly related, often as full sisters, elevating relatedness among their progeny,
the workers. This pattern of queen production is driven by collective worker control of the sex ratios. Workers are three
times more highly related to females than to males in colonies with a single queen while they are more equally related to
males and females in colonies with more queens. As a result of this difference, workers will prefer to produce new queens
in colonies with a single queen and males in colonies with many queens. Cyclical oligogyny has also evolved independently
in another group of swarm-founding wasps, the Neotropical epiponine wasps, suggesting that collective worker control of sex
ratios is widespread in polistine wasps.
Received: 22 May 2000 / Revised: 24 August 2000 / Accepted: 4 September 2000 |
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Keywords: | Split sex ratios Microsatellite Conflicts of interest Ropalidiini Altruism |
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