Foster K R, Ratnieks F L
Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Am Nat. 2001 Dec;158(6):615-23. doi: 10.1086/323588.
Mutual policing is thought to be important in conflict suppression at all levels of biological organization. In hymenopteran societies (bees, ants, and wasps), multiple mating by queens favors mutual policing of male production among workers (worker policing). However, worker policing of male production is proving to be more widespread than predicted by relatedness patterns, occurring in societies headed by single-mated queens in which, paradoxically, workers are more related to the workers' sons that they kill than the queen's sons that they spare. Here we develop an inclusive-fitness model to show that a second reproductive conflict, the conflict over sex allocation, can explain the evolution of worker policing contrary to relatedness predictions. Among ants, and probably other social Hymenoptera, workers kill males to favor their more related sisters. Importantly, males are killed at the larval stage, presumably because workers cannot determine the sex of queen-laid eggs. Sex-allocation biasing favors worker policing because policing removes some males (the workers' sons) at low cost at the egg stage rather than at higher cost at the larval stage. Our model reveals an important interaction between two reproductive conflicts in which the presence of one conflict (sex allocation) favors the suppression of the other (male production by workers).
相互监督被认为在生物组织的各个层面的冲突抑制中都很重要。在膜翅目昆虫群体（蜜蜂、蚂蚁和黄蜂）中，蚁后多次交配有利于工蚁之间对雄性生产进行相互监督（工蚁监督）。然而，事实证明，工蚁对雄性生产的监督比亲缘关系模式所预测的更为普遍，在由单配蚁后领导的群体中也会出现，矛盾的是，在这种群体中，工蚁与它们杀死的工蚁儿子的亲缘关系比它们放过的蚁后儿子的亲缘关系更近。在这里，我们建立了一个广义适合度模型，以表明另一种生殖冲突，即性别分配冲突，可以解释与亲缘关系预测相反的工蚁监督的进化。在蚂蚁以及可能其他社会性膜翅目昆虫中，工蚁杀死雄性以偏袒与其亲缘关系更近的姐妹。重要的是，雄性在幼虫阶段就被杀死，大概是因为工蚁无法确定蚁后所产卵的性别。偏向性别分配有利于工蚁监督，因为监督以低成本在卵阶段而非在幼虫阶段以更高成本清除了一些雄性（工蚁的儿子）。我们的模型揭示了两种生殖冲突之间的重要相互作用，其中一种冲突（性别分配）的存在有利于抑制另一种冲突（工蚁的雄性生产）。
