Laboratorio de Ecología Molecular and Filoinformática, Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanográficas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile.
PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e40838. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040838. Epub 2012 Jul 13.
Recently, it has been proposed that the one of the main determinants of complex societies in Hymenoptera is colony size, since the existence of large colonies reduces the direct reproductive success of an average individual, given a decreased chance of being part of the reproductive caste. In this study, we evaluate colony size evolution in corbiculate bees and their relationship with the sociality level shown by these bees. Specifically i) the correlation between colony size and level of sociality considering the phylogenetic relationship to evaluate a general evolutionary tendency, and ii) the hypothetical ancestral forms of several clades within a phylogeny of corbiculate bees, to address idiosyncratic process occurring at important nodes. We found that the level of social complexity in corbiculate bees is phylogenetically correlated with colony size. Additionally, another process is invoked to propose why colony size evolved concurrently with the level of social complexity. The study of this trait improves the understanding of the evolutionary transition from simple to complex societies, and highlights the importance of explicit probabilistic models to test the evolution of other important characters involved in the origin of eusociality.
最近有人提出，膜翅目昆虫中复杂社会的一个主要决定因素是群体大小，因为在生殖等级中，个体成为生殖个体的机会减少，大群体的存在降低了个体的直接生殖成功率。在这项研究中，我们评估了拟熊蜂科蜜蜂的群体大小进化及其与这些蜜蜂表现出的社会性水平的关系。具体来说，我们考虑了进化关系来评估一个总体进化趋势，分析了 i) 群体大小与社会性水平之间的相关性，以及 ii) 在拟熊蜂科的系统发育中几个分支的假设祖先形式，以解决在重要节点发生的特殊过程。我们发现，拟熊蜂科蜜蜂的社会复杂性水平在进化上与群体大小相关。此外，还引入了另一个过程来解释为什么群体大小与社会复杂性水平同时进化。对该特征的研究提高了对从简单社会向复杂社会进化的理解，并强调了使用明确的概率模型来测试涉及真社会性起源的其他重要特征进化的重要性。
