Palmer Kellie A, Oldroyd Benjamin P, Quezada-Euán José Javier G, Paxton Robert J, May-Itza William de J
School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Mol Ecol. 2002 Oct;11(10):2107-13. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-294x.2002.01589.x.
In monogynous hymenopteran societies, the number of mates of a queen strongly influences the potential for conflict between workers and queens over the maternity of males. Queens always 'prefer' their own sons to sons of workers, regardless of queen mating frequency. When a queen mates once, workers are more closely related to, and therefore are expected to prefer, their own sons and then sons of sisters to sons of the queen. However, if effective paternity frequency exceeds 2, workers on average should prefer queen-produced males to males produced by their sisters. We studied the queen mating frequency of seven stingless bee species: the Mexican species Scaptotrigona mexicana, S. pectoralis and the Australian species Austroplebeia symei, Trigona clypearis, T. hockingsi, T. mellipes and T. sapiens. We then determined whether males arise from eggs laid by workers or queens in A. symei, T. clypearis, T. hockingsi and T. mellipes. We show that all seven species investigated are most likely singly mated and that the queen dominates reproduction. This indicates that the queen's mating frequency alone does not determine whether workers or the queen produces the males.
在单后型膜翅目昆虫社会中，蚁后的配偶数量强烈影响工蚁与蚁后在雄性后代亲权问题上产生冲突的可能性。无论蚁后的交配频率如何，蚁后总是“偏爱”自己的儿子而非工蚁的儿子。当蚁后只交配一次时，工蚁与自己的儿子亲缘关系更近，因此预计会偏爱自己的儿子，然后是姐妹的儿子，而非蚁后的儿子。然而，如果有效父权频率超过2，平均而言工蚁应该更偏爱蚁后所生的雄性后代而非姐妹所生的雄性后代。我们研究了七种无刺蜂的蚁后交配频率：墨西哥的墨西哥无刺蜂、胸无刺蜂，以及澳大利亚的西氏澳无刺蜂、圆腹无刺蜂、霍氏无刺蜂、蜜无刺蜂和智无刺蜂。然后我们确定了在西氏澳无刺蜂、圆腹无刺蜂、霍氏无刺蜂和蜜无刺蜂中，雄性后代是由工蚁还是蚁后所产的卵发育而来。我们发现，所研究的所有七个物种很可能都是单配偶制，且蚁后主导繁殖。这表明，仅蚁后的交配频率并不能决定是工蚁还是蚁后产生雄性后代。
