Reproductive Harmony via Mutual Policing by Workers in Eusocial Hymenoptera

Abstract

When queens of eusocial Hymenoptera mate two or more times (assuming equal sperm contributions from males and random sperm use), the workers are more closely related to the queen's sons than to the sons of a randomly chosen worker. This suggests that workers should try to prevent other workers from reproducing, and hence producing sons, in species with queens that mate two or more times. It also provides a possible reason for the absence of reproductive workers in many hymenopteran societies. Reproductive harmony may, therefore, and counterintuitively, result from lowered relatedness among workers. Evidence from the biological literature indicates that eusocial Hymenoptera have the necessary behaviors and discriminatory ability to favor queen-produced over worker-produced males, and any such behavior is referred to as worker policing. Population-genetics simulations of the fate of a police allele, which confers any marginal increase in policing behavior to the workers carrying it, indicate that such a...