Sampling Error, Effective Paternity, and Estimating the Genetic Structure of Honey Bee Colonies (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Abstract

Abstract Multiple mating by social Hymenopteran queens significantly lowers the average genetic relatedness among female nestmates, which subsequently affects a wide range of social behaviors. Honey bees (Apis spp.) have among the highest levels of multiple mating in social insects, and have received the most empirical effort to quantify the effective paternities within colonies. We reviewed 24 studies that estimated paternity frequencies of individual, naturally-mated honey bee queens using molecular techniques. We summarize the methods used to estimate effective paternity (me) and intracolonial genetic relatedness (G). We then concentrate on the effect of sample size on estimates of me using Monte Carlo simulations. The results demonstrate that me estimates may vary significantly as a result of sampling error, particularly at low worker sample sizes and high paternity numbers. From these simulations, we arbitrarily define a “threshold” worker sample size to effective paternity ratio (n/me) that, at best...