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Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees

Nepotism was initially theoretically predicted and sometimes found to trigger the selection of specific larvae to be reared as queens in the honeybee Apis mellifera. Although the importance of selecting the next queen for a colony indicates that it should not occur at random, nepotism is increasingl...

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Autores principales: AL-Kahtani, Saad Naser, Bienefeld, Kaspar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8341480/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34351980
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255151
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author AL-Kahtani, Saad Naser
Bienefeld, Kaspar
author_facet AL-Kahtani, Saad Naser
Bienefeld, Kaspar
author_sort AL-Kahtani, Saad Naser
collection PubMed
description Nepotism was initially theoretically predicted and sometimes found to trigger the selection of specific larvae to be reared as queens in the honeybee Apis mellifera. Although the importance of selecting the next queen for a colony indicates that it should not occur at random, nepotism is increasingly considered unlikely in eusocial insect societies. Different prenatal maternal supplies of embryos have been found to impact fitness in many other species and therefore could be a possible trigger underlying the likelihood of being raised as a queen. We offered related or unrelated larvae from six colonies originating from eggs of different weights for emergency queen rearing in queenless units with worker bees from these six colonies. We showed that nurses did not significantly prefer related larvae during queen rearing, which confirms the theory that different relatedness-driven kin preferences within a colony cannot be converted into a colony-level decision. However, we found that larvae originating from heavier eggs were significantly preferred for queen breeding. Studies on other species have shown that superior maternal supply is important for later reproductive success. However, we did observe tendencies in the expected direction (e.g., queens that hatched from heavier eggs had both more ovarioles and a shorter preoviposition period). Nevertheless, our data do not allow for a significant conclusion that the selection of larvae from heavy eggs truly offers fitness advantages.
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spelling pubmed-83414802021-08-06 Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees AL-Kahtani, Saad Naser Bienefeld, Kaspar PLoS One Research Article Nepotism was initially theoretically predicted and sometimes found to trigger the selection of specific larvae to be reared as queens in the honeybee Apis mellifera. Although the importance of selecting the next queen for a colony indicates that it should not occur at random, nepotism is increasingly considered unlikely in eusocial insect societies. Different prenatal maternal supplies of embryos have been found to impact fitness in many other species and therefore could be a possible trigger underlying the likelihood of being raised as a queen. We offered related or unrelated larvae from six colonies originating from eggs of different weights for emergency queen rearing in queenless units with worker bees from these six colonies. We showed that nurses did not significantly prefer related larvae during queen rearing, which confirms the theory that different relatedness-driven kin preferences within a colony cannot be converted into a colony-level decision. However, we found that larvae originating from heavier eggs were significantly preferred for queen breeding. Studies on other species have shown that superior maternal supply is important for later reproductive success. However, we did observe tendencies in the expected direction (e.g., queens that hatched from heavier eggs had both more ovarioles and a shorter preoviposition period). Nevertheless, our data do not allow for a significant conclusion that the selection of larvae from heavy eggs truly offers fitness advantages. Public Library of Science 2021-08-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8341480/ /pubmed/34351980 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255151 Text en © 2021 AL-Kahtani, Bienefeld https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
AL-Kahtani, Saad Naser
Bienefeld, Kaspar
Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees
title Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees
title_full Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees
title_fullStr Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees
title_full_unstemmed Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees
title_short Strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees
title_sort strength surpasses relatedness–queen larva selection in honeybees
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8341480/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34351980
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255151
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