Palmer Kellie A, Oldroyd Benjamin P
School of Biological Sciences A12, University of Sydney, 2006, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Naturwissenschaften. 2003 Jun;90(6):265-8. doi: 10.1007/s00114-003-0418-3. Epub 2003 May 7.
Explanations for the evolution of multiple mating by social insect (particularly honey bee) queens have been frequently sought. An important hypothesis is that multiple mating is adaptive because it increases intracolonial genetic diversity and thereby reduces the likelihood that parasites or pathogens will catastrophically infect a colony. We tested one assumption of this model: that honey bee worker patrilines should differ in disease resistance. We used American foulbrood (caused by the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae) as a model pathogen. We found that patrilines within colonies do indeed vary in their resistance to this disease.
人们经常探寻社会性昆虫（尤其是蜜蜂）蜂后进行多次交配进化的原因。一个重要的假说是，多次交配具有适应性，因为它增加了群体内的遗传多样性，从而降低了寄生虫或病原体对蜂群造成灾难性感染的可能性。我们检验了该模型的一个假设：蜜蜂工蜂的父系在抗病性上应该存在差异。我们使用美洲幼虫腐臭病（由幼虫芽孢杆菌引起）作为模型病原体。我们发现，蜂群内的父系在对这种疾病的抗性上确实存在差异。
