The rarity of multiple mating by females in the social Hymenoptera

Strassmann, Joan E.

doi:10.1007/pl00001737

Cited by 312 publications

(332 citation statements)

References 152 publications

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“…Subsequently, the theory was formalized and extended using an explicit population genetic model by Ratnieks [32] in 1988. Support for the theory came a year later, with the discovery that workers kill or 'police' each others' eggs [6] in the honeybee, a species in which, as predicted, queens mate with multiple males [15].…”

Section: Box 2 Controversy: the Selective Basis Of Worker Policingmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…However, are the observed levels of relatedness sufficient to explain the extreme worker altruism observed in many insect societies? For example, in the honeybee Apis mellifera, queens mate with about ten males, and workers are related by only 0.3 [15]. How can this low level of relatedness result in societies in which fewer than one in 1000 workers attempts to lay eggs [16] or one in 10 000 female larvae develops into a queen [17]?…”

Section: Glossarymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If all workers laid eggs, thereby leaving none to work, the colony would die and the inclusive fitness of every individual, including the egg layers, would be zero [17]. The equilibrium proportion of workers that should reproduce, in the absence of coercion, can be determined from Hamilton's rule [13] (Box 1) and is 14% for species such as stingless bees or bumblebees, in which queens mate with a single male [15], and 54% for the honeybee. Importantly, these figures suggest that the intermediate relatedness levels found in insect societies cannot cause the extreme altruism found in the honeybee and many other species, in which very few workers reproduce.…”

Section: Glossarymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Ratnieks

Wenseleers

2008

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

173

196

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Section: Box 2 Controversy: the Selective Basis Of Worker Policingmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Glossarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Glossarymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Ratnieks

Wenseleers

2008

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

173

196

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“…has been taken to extreme levels (Strassmann 2001). Honeybee queens, for example, can mate with over a hundred males (Wattanachaiyingcharoen et al 2003).…”

Section: Acromyrmex and Pogonomyrmex])mentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic Diversity and Disease Resistance in Leaf-Cutting Ant Societies

Hughes

Boomsma

2004

Evol

112

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Abstract.•Multiple mating by females (polyandry) remains hard to explain because, while it has substantial costs, clear benefits have remained elusive. The problem is acute in the social insects because polyandry is probably particularly costly for females and most material benefits of the behavior are unlikely to apply. It has been suggested that a fitness benefit may arise from the more genetically diverse worker force that a polyandrous queen will produce. One leading hypothesis is that the increased genetic diversity of workers will improve a colony's resistance to disease. We investigated this hypothesis using a polyandrous leaf-cutting ant and a virulent fungal parasite as our model system. At high doses of the parasite most patrilines within colonies were similarly susceptible, but a few showed greater resistance. At a low dose of the parasite there was more variation between patrilines in their resistance to the parasite. Such genetic variation is a key prerequisite for polyandry to result in increased disease resistance of colonies. The relatedness of two hosts did not appear to affect the transmission of the parasite between them, but this was most likely because the parasite tested was a virulent generalist that is adapted to transmit between distantly related hosts. The resistance to the parasite was compared between small groups of ants of either high or low genetic diversity. No difference was found at high doses of the parasite, but a significant improvement in resistance in high genetic diversity groups was found at a low dose of the parasite. That there is genetic variation for disease resistance means that there is the potential for polyandry to produce more disease-resistant colonies. That this genetic variation can improve the resistance of groups even under the limited conditions tested suggests that polyandry may indeed produce colonies with improved resistance to disease.

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“…Typically, close relatedness among colony members is maintained through monandry (Strassmann, 2001), when a queen mates with a single male. Monandry is ancestral in the Hymenoptera and remains widespread across the majority of its extant social species (Hughes et al, 2008a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recruitment-dance signals draw larger audiences when honey bee colonies have multiple patrilines

2010

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Honey bee queens (Apis mellifera) who mate with multiple males produce colonies that are filled with numerous genetically distinct patrilines of workers. A genetically diverse colony benefits from an enhanced foraging effort, fuelled in part by an increase in the number of recruitment signals that are produced by foragers. However, the influence of patriline diversity on the attention paid to these signals by audiences of potentially receptive workers remains unexplored. To determine whether recruitment dances performed by foragers in multiple-patriline colonies attract a greater number of dance followers than dances in colonies that lack patriline diversity, we trained workers from multiple-and singlepatriline colonies to forage in a greenhouse and monitored their dance-following activity back in the hives. On average, more workers followed a dance if it was performed in a multiple-patriline colony rather than a single-patriline colony (33% increase), and for a greater number of dance circuits per follower. Furthermore, dance-following workers in multiple-patriline colonies were more likely to exit their hive after following a dance, although this did not translate to a difference in colony-level exit rates between treatment types. Recruiting nest mates to profitable food sources through dance communication is critical to a colony's foraging success and long-term fitness; polyandrous queens produce colonies that benefit not only from increased recruitment signalling, but also from the generation of larger and more attentive audiences of signal receivers. This study highlights the importance of integrating responses of both signal senders and receivers to understand more fully the success of animal-communication systems.

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The rarity of multiple mating by females in the social Hymenoptera

Cited by 312 publications

References 152 publications

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Genetic Diversity and Disease Resistance in Leaf-Cutting Ant Societies

Recruitment-dance signals draw larger audiences when honey bee colonies have multiple patrilines

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