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Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

BACKGROUND: Cooperation and conflict in social insects are closely linked to the genetic structure of the colony. Kin selection theory predicts conflict over the production of males between the workers and the queen and between the workers themselves, depending on intra-colonial relatedness but also...

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Autores principales: Huth-Schwarz, Anett, León, Adolfo, Vandame, Rémy, Moritz, Robin FA, Kraus, F Bernhard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3127829/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21651814
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-8-13
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author Huth-Schwarz, Anett
León, Adolfo
Vandame, Rémy
Moritz, Robin FA
Kraus, F Bernhard
author_facet Huth-Schwarz, Anett
León, Adolfo
Vandame, Rémy
Moritz, Robin FA
Kraus, F Bernhard
author_sort Huth-Schwarz, Anett
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Cooperation and conflict in social insects are closely linked to the genetic structure of the colony. Kin selection theory predicts conflict over the production of males between the workers and the queen and between the workers themselves, depending on intra-colonial relatedness but also on other factors like colony efficiency, sex ratios, cost of worker reproduction and worker dominance behaviour. In most bumblebee (Bombus) species the queen wins this conflict and often dominates male production. However, most studies in bumblebees have been conducted with only a few selected, mostly single mated species from temperate climate regions. Here we study the genetic colony composition of the facultative polyandrous neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae, to assess the outcome of the queen-worker conflict over male production and to detect potential worker policing. RESULTS: A total of 120 males from five colonies were genotyped with up to nine microsatellite markers to infer their parentage. Four of the five colonies were queen right at point of time of male sampling, while one had an uncertain queen status. The workers clearly dominated production of males with an average of 84.9% +/- 14.3% of males being worker sons. In the two doubly mated colonies 62.5% and 96.7% of the male offspring originated from workers and both patrilines participated in male production. Inferring the mother genotypes from the male offspring, between four to eight workers participated in the production of males. CONCLUSIONS: In this study we show that the workers clearly win the queen-worker conflict over male production in B. wilmattae, which sets them apart from the temperate bumblebee species studied so far. Workers clearly dominated male production in the singly as well the doubly mated colonies, with up to eight workers producing male offspring in a single colony. Moreover no monopolization of reproduction by single workers occurred.
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spelling pubmed-31278292011-07-01 Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Huth-Schwarz, Anett León, Adolfo Vandame, Rémy Moritz, Robin FA Kraus, F Bernhard Front Zool Research BACKGROUND: Cooperation and conflict in social insects are closely linked to the genetic structure of the colony. Kin selection theory predicts conflict over the production of males between the workers and the queen and between the workers themselves, depending on intra-colonial relatedness but also on other factors like colony efficiency, sex ratios, cost of worker reproduction and worker dominance behaviour. In most bumblebee (Bombus) species the queen wins this conflict and often dominates male production. However, most studies in bumblebees have been conducted with only a few selected, mostly single mated species from temperate climate regions. Here we study the genetic colony composition of the facultative polyandrous neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae, to assess the outcome of the queen-worker conflict over male production and to detect potential worker policing. RESULTS: A total of 120 males from five colonies were genotyped with up to nine microsatellite markers to infer their parentage. Four of the five colonies were queen right at point of time of male sampling, while one had an uncertain queen status. The workers clearly dominated production of males with an average of 84.9% +/- 14.3% of males being worker sons. In the two doubly mated colonies 62.5% and 96.7% of the male offspring originated from workers and both patrilines participated in male production. Inferring the mother genotypes from the male offspring, between four to eight workers participated in the production of males. CONCLUSIONS: In this study we show that the workers clearly win the queen-worker conflict over male production in B. wilmattae, which sets them apart from the temperate bumblebee species studied so far. Workers clearly dominated male production in the singly as well the doubly mated colonies, with up to eight workers producing male offspring in a single colony. Moreover no monopolization of reproduction by single workers occurred. BioMed Central 2011-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3127829/ /pubmed/21651814 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-8-13 Text en Copyright © 2011 Huth-Schwarz et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Huth-Schwarz, Anett
León, Adolfo
Vandame, Rémy
Moritz, Robin FA
Kraus, F Bernhard
Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_full Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_fullStr Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_full_unstemmed Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_short Workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee Bombus wilmattae (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_sort workers dominate male production in the neotropical bumblebee bombus wilmattae (hymenoptera: apidae)
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3127829/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21651814
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-8-13
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