Abstract
In spite of the importance of understanding the adaptive significance of polyandry in the social Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps), little consensus exists regarding the terminology employed, the use of different paternity estimates, the calculation of such estimates and their associated error measures, and the way paternity should be treated in comparative studies. Here I summarize previous methodological contributions to the study of polyandry in social insects, hoping that such a compendium will serve as an updated guide to future researchers. I first revise the estimates describing queen mating behavior and paternity outcomes in polyandrous social insects, outlining appropriate methods for calculating them. I then address the errors associated to paternity estimates and explain how to account for them. Finally I discuss in which cases paternity should be treated as a continuous or a categorical variable, and provide an insight into the distribution of paternity across the social Hymenoptera. This technical review highlights the importance of standardizing research methods to prevent common errors, raise confidence in the reported data, and facilitate comparisons between studies, to help shed light into many unanswered questions.
Highlights
Understanding the adaptive significance of multiple mating by social insect queens has been a central goal of many social insect researchers for the past three decades (Page & Metcalf 1982; Crozier & Fjerdingstad 2001; Boomsma et al 2009; Kraus & Moritz 2010; Palmer & Oldroyd 2000)
Among the many hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the evolution of polyandry in the social Hymenoptera, the genetic diversity or genetic variance hypothesis enjoys most current support (Palmer & Oldroyd 2000; Crozier & Fjerdingstad 2001)
Colony size, has been found positively correlated to paternity frequency, indicating that larger colonies might profit more from genetic diversity (SchmidHempel 1998; Bourke 1999), or alternatively, that queens heading large colonies need to mate with several males to obtain enough sperm (Cole 1983; Kraus et al 2004; but see Jaffé et al 2014)
Summary
Understanding the adaptive significance of multiple mating by social insect queens (polyandry) has been a central goal of many social insect researchers for the past three decades (Page & Metcalf 1982; Crozier & Fjerdingstad 2001; Boomsma et al 2009; Kraus & Moritz 2010; Palmer & Oldroyd 2000). Single paternity resulting from monandry (single mating) is currently regarded as a crucial precondition for the evolution of eusociality in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps), since it maximizes genetic relatedness between colony members (Boomsma 2009; Hughes et al 2008a). Understanding the consequences of polyandry for the evolution of male and female traits is crucial to gain a complete understanding of the reproductive biology of social insects (Kvarnemo and Simmons 2013). This knowledge is essential to design effective breeding programs for commercial species
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