Virgin queens in stingless bee (Apidae, Meliponinae) colonies: a review

Imperatriz-Fonseca, Vera Lúcia; Zucchi, R

doi:10.1051/apido:19950305

Cited by 85 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Mortality was not age-related, but condition-related to the day of their emergence. Young queens are normally killed some days after emerging, while males leave the nest after a few days (Imperatriz-Fonseca and Zucchi, 1995;Koedam et al, 1995;Wenseleers et al, 2004), so, therefore, marked gynes and males were no longer found.…”

Section: Data Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Egg laying and oophagy by reproductive workers in the polygynous stingless beeMelipona bicolor(Hymenoptera, Meliponini)

Koedam¹,

Aponte

Imperatriz-Fonseca

2007

Apidologie

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-We studied queen-worker conflict over male production in a Melipona bicolor colony, having three physogastric queens and individually marked workers, by means of observations of the processes of cell oviposition. The gender that developed from these cells showed that queens produced mainly female offspring. The overall percentage of the males that were workers' sons was estimated between 27 and 82%. Forty-two times workers were seen to deposit a male egg, normally following the queen's oviposition, in the same cell and in sixteen cases, the reproductive worker ate the egg already present in the cell before ovipositing in it. Workers not only were more likely to lay their egg next to that of another worker than next to a queen's egg, they also were more likely to replace the egg already present when it was worker-derived. Their conduct agrees with predictions from kin-selection theory because workers are better served when rearing sons at the cost of other workers' sons than at the cost of queens' daughters. stingless bees / Melipona bicolor / kin conflict / worker reproduction / worker oophagy

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Section: Data Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Egg laying and oophagy by reproductive workers in the polygynous stingless beeMelipona bicolor(Hymenoptera, Meliponini)

Koedam¹,

Aponte

Imperatriz-Fonseca

2007

Apidologie

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“…It also seems simpler to acknowledge the fact that, given the complete sealing of the cell after the egg is laid, it is not possible to rear gynes in queenless colonies, and so there is always the need to maintain a stock of virgin queens to ensure the perenniality of the colony (7,56,59). Peters et al (55) are contrary to this alternative explanation for believing that the sealing of the cell would not in reality be a constraint, as ''in some species microqueens can emerge from worker cells, while in others, a worker larva can become a queen by chewing into another cell to gain extra food.''…”

Section: Sex-ratio Conflicts and Social Biology Of Organismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-ratio conflicts, kin selection, and the evolution of altruism

Alonso

Schuck‐Paim

2002

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Kin-selection theory has thrived in the explanation of a wide variety of biological phenomena, chiefly the evolution of biological altruism as that found in sterile castes of eusocial insects. Much of the way in which it has been tested is based on the existence of conflicts over sex-ratio production within eusocial colonies. However, despite neatly showing eusocial colonies as arenas where selection at the gene level triggers the appearance of sophisticated disputes, these studies have only demonstrated the existence of genes that act by biasing sex ratios to promote their own spread. Here we argue that such genes depend on the social organization of the colonies where they are expressed, but that they are not, in any way, the precursors of these societies-the major implication being that unequivocal evidence that eusociality evolved through the action of kin-selected altruistic genes is still lacking. Additionally, we highlight the neglect of alternative theories on the explanation of both biological altruism and sex-ratio conflicts, and defend that the enthusiasm with the latter has, in some cases, led to its inappropriate use as a basis for the explanation of other biological characteristics of eusocial organisms, when accounts based on phylogenetic or physiological constraints are also available.

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“…What happens to these excess queens? Researchers once assumed that these queens are simply slaughtered by the workers, and in many cases this does seem to be their most likely fate (Imperatiz-Fonseca and Zucchi, 1995). However, genotyping showed that in M. scutellaris, 25% of all replacement queens were not related to the workers in the colony (Wenseleers et al, 2011).…”

Section: General Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Intraspecific parasitism by queens would appear to be highly advantageous both to the queen herself and to the natal colony. Given that many species of stingless bees produce excess queens (Imperatiz-Fonseca and Zucchi, 1995), it is likely that queen parasitism also occurs in other stingless bees.…”

Section: General Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%