A Game Theoretical Analysis of the Mating Sign Behavior in the Honey Bee

Abstract

Queens of the honey bee, Apis mellifera (L.), exhibit extreme polyandry, mating with up to forty-five different males (drones). This increases the genetic diversity of their colonies and consequently their fitness. After copulation, drones leave a mating sign in the genital opening of the queen which has been shown to promote additional mating of the queen. On one hand, this signing behavior is beneficial for the drone because it increases the genetic diversity of the resulting colony. On the other hand, it decreases the proportion of the drone's personal offspring among colony members which is detrimental to the drone. We analyze the adaptiveness and evolutionary stability of this drone's behavior with a game-theoretical model. We find that theoretically both the strategy of leaving a mating sign and the strategy of not leaving a mating sign can be evolutionary stable, depending on natural parameters. However, for most scenarios, including all biologically plausible ones, based on empirical data the signing strategy is not favored. We conclude that leaving a sign is not in the interest of the drone unless it serves biological functions other than increasing subsequent queen mating chances.

Random sperm use and genetic effects on worker caste fate in Atta colombica leaf-cutting ants

“…Other putative male adaptations to sexual selection include mating plugs (Baer et al. 2000; Mikheyev 2003; Baer 2011) and detachable male genitalia (Wilhelm et al. 2011).…”

“…Despite these evolutionary constraints, specialized male adaptations to sperm competition have been reported, including chemically complex seminal fluid ) that lowers the survival of rival male sperm while preserving self-sperm (den Boer et al 2010;King et al 2011). Other putative male adaptations to sexual selection include mating plugs (Baer et al 2000;Mikheyev 2003;Baer 2011) and detachable male genitalia (Wilhelm et al 2011). Large variation in paternity skew (the difference in proportion of offspring fathered by each male; Boomsma & Ratnieks 1996) has been reported both within and across species (e.g.…”

Mating Unplugged: A Model for the Evolution of Mating Plug (Dis-)Placement

“…Mating plugs that do not prevent female remating may serve alternative functions, such as stimulation of sperm transport (Ramm et al 2005), prevention of sperm loss (Woyciechowski et al 1994) protection from sperm desiccation (Huber 1995), or female fecundity stimulation (Timmermeyer et al 2010; for theoretical accounts of fecundity stimulation in a context of sperm competition, see Cameron et al 2007; Alonzo and Pizzari 2010). The mating plug of the honey bee even appears to promote female remating, although the adaptive value of this remains unclear (Wilhelm et al 2011). Ineffective mating plugs may also exist temporarily when a mating system is not in evolutionary equilibrium.…”

Modelos Matemáticos, Simulação da Produção e Índice Tecnológico de Municípios do Rio de Janeiro

“…No mesmo trabalho, os autores mencionam um modelo mais antigo, cuja complexidade eles haviam aprimorado [28]. Em períodos mais recentes, pode-se encontrar o uso tanto de modelos estocásticos quanto determinísticos, em particular aqueles baseados em equações diferenciais, para modelar, por exemplo, a dinâmica e estrutura populacional de colmeias [6,10,20,33]; sanidade apícola [8,18,30] e o manejo apícola [11].…”