The mechanism of nestmate discrimination in the tropical social wasp Ropalidia marginata and its implications for the evolution of sociality (original) (raw)
Related papers
Proceedings: Animal Sciences, 1985
Kin selection is a widely invoked mechanism to explain the origin and evolution of social behaviour in animals. Proponents of the theory of kin selection place great emphasis on the correlation between asymmetries in genetic relatedness created by haplodiploidy and the multiple origins of eusociality in the order Hymenoptera. The fact that a female is more closely related genetically to her full sister than to her daughters makes it more profitable for a Hymenopteran female, in terms of inclusive fitness, to raise full sisters rather than daughters or full siblings with a female biased sex ratio rather than offspring. This is sometimes referred to as the haplodiploidy hypothesis. In reality however, genetic relatedness between workers in social insect colonies and the reproductive brood they rear is far below 0075, the value expected for full sisters, often below 005 the value expected between mother and daughter and, not uncommonly, approaching zero. Such values are on account of queen turnover, multiple mating by queens or polygyny. This situation raises doubts regarding the haplodiploidy hypothesis unless workers can discriminate between full and half sisters and preferentially direct their altruism towards their full sisters only. This would still mean an effective coefficient of genetic relatedness of 0,75 between altruist and recipient. For this to be possible however, workers should be able to recognise their full sisters inspite of growing up with and being habituated to an assortment of full sisters, half sisters and perhaps other even less related individuals. Even outside the Hymenoptera, social animals may find themselves growing up together in the company of individuals of varying degrees of relatedness. An ability to tell apart the more and less related individuals under such circumstances should favour kin selection.
The Evolution and Ontogeny of Nestmate Recognition in Social Wasps
Annual Review of Entomology, 1986
During the past decade, a substantial and rapidly expanding literature has documented that a diversity of hymenopterans have the ability to recognize their conspecific nestmates (22). As recognition research enters its second generation, investigators are turning their attention to elucidating the mechanisms of nestmate recognition and how the features of these mechanisms, as well as recognition ability itself, relate to an animal's sociobiology. Such studies are important not only because of their relevance to an understanding of the evolution and ecology of hymenopteran sociality, but also because of their potential application for control of economically important social insects. In our review, we summarize the evidence for nestmate recognition ability in social wasps, and examine in detail the mechanism of female-female nestmate recognition using primitively eusocial wasps (Polistes) as a model. We also compare the Polistes mechanism with mechanisms proposed for other social Hymenoptera and ,with the major theoretical models of kin recognition developed for animals in general. This is followed by a discussion of the possible adaptiveness of both female-female nestmate recognition ability and the specific mechanisms underlying this ability. Finally, we explore the preadaptations
Testing kin selection with sex allocation data in eusocial Hymenoptera
Heredity, 1999
Sex allocation data in eusocial Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) provide an excellent opportunity to assess the eectiveness of kin selection, because queens and workers dier in their relatedness to females and males. The ®rst studies on sex allocation in eusocial Hymenoptera compared population sex investment ratios across species. Female-biased investment in monogyne ( with single-queen colonies) populations of ants suggested that workers manipulate sex allocation according to their higher relatedness to females than males (relatedness asymmetry). However, several factors may confound these comparisons across species. First, variation in relatedness asymmetry is typically associated with major changes in breeding system and life history that may also aect sex allocation. Secondly, the relative cost of females and males is dicult to estimate across sexually dimorphic taxa, such as ants. Thirdly, each species in the comparison may not represent an independent data point, because of phylogenetic relationships among species. Recently, stronger evidence that workers control sex allocation has been provided by intraspe-ci®c studies of sex ratio variation across colonies. In several species of eusocial Hymenoptera, colonies with high relatedness asymmetry produced mostly females, in contrast to colonies with low relatedness asymmetry which produced mostly males. Additional signs of worker control were found by investigating proximate mechanisms of sex ratio manipulation in ants and wasps. However, worker control is not always eective, and further manipulative experiments will be needed to disentangle the multiple evolutionary factors and processes aecting sex allocation in eusocial Hymenoptera.
1993
Hamilton's hypothesis of haplodiploidy offers the best explanation of the origins of eusociality in Hymenoptera; but the fad of polygynous colony foundation by bees and wasps has been a stumbling block to the acceptance of this hypothesis. Polygynous colonies are usually founded by sisters that divide the reproductive function; because they always develop into ordinary matrifilial colonies, the calculation of the genetic contribution of the gyne that performs the worker function at the time of polygynous colony foundation must be made over a period of time corresponding to a full cycle of colony development. This gyne produces nephews and nieces with which it has a mean genetic similarity of 3/8; over the same period of time, a solitary gyne produces second-generation offspring with which it has a genetic similarity of only 1/4. Polygynous colony foundation is supported by kin selection, but this occurs only after the beginning of eusociality. Keywords. Hymenoptera; social behavior.
Insectes Sociaux, 1992
Female wasps or the tropical primitively eusocial species Ropalidia marginata are known to discriminate unfamiliar nestmates from unfamiliar non-nestmates outside the context or their nests. Here, we show that when foreign conspecifics are introduced in the context of a nest in laboratory cages, genetic relatives among them are treated by nest inhabitants more tolerantly than nonrelatives, but that no foreign conspecifics are accepted into the nests. However, some wasps may leave their nest and join the foreign relatives and non-relatives to found new colonies cooperatively. Very fow or the introduced animals are severely attacked or killed; most are allowed to remain in parts or the cage away from the nest. These results suggest that factors other than genetic relatedness may be involved in regulating tolerance and acceptance or foreign conspecifics on a nest and its vicinity. Our results are different from those or similar experiments with ants, which have demonstrated that former nestma.tes that are removed as pupae and later introduced as adults are either accepted into the nest or attacked and killed. We attribute this difference to the fact that in a primitively eusocial species such as R. marginata, the rules governiag tolerance and acceptance or foreign conspecifics must be quite different from those in highly eusocial species. We also attempt to test some predictions or the conspecific acceptance threshold models or Reeve (Am. Nat. 133 :407-435, 1989). Our results uphold the predictions or his "fitness consequence submode!" but do not support those or his "interaction frequency sub-model".
Apidologie, 2017
The present study investigated the level of reproductive skew during the reactivation processes of 11 nests of Euglossa cordata. Behavioral observations associated with kinship analysis between offspring and females involved in these processes were carried out. Different types of associations between females occurred in these reactivations: between mothers and daughters, sisters, cousins, and unrelated females. Behavioral observations and Mendelian segregation analysis at 12 microsatellite loci attributed all the offspring to the dominant female of each nest. The results revealed a full reproductive skew at the different processes of reactivation, irrespective of the type of association between females. Thus, our data indicate that reproductive skew was not associated with genetic relatedness in E. cordata. Euglossa / reproductive skew / sociogenetic structure / microsatellites Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (