Kinship, parental manipulation and evolutionary origins of eusociality

One of the hallmarks of eusociality is that workers forego their own reproduction to assist their mother in raising siblings. This seemingly altruistic behaviour may benefit workers if gains in indirect fitness from rearing siblings outweigh the loss of direct fitness. If worker presence is advantag...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 2015-03, Vol.282 (1803), p.20142886-20142886
Main Authors: Kapheim, Karen M., Nonacs, Peter, Smith, Adam R., Wayne, Robert K., Wcislo, William T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Altruism
Animals
Bees - genetics
Bees - physiology
Behavior, Animal
Eusociality
Evolution, Molecular
Female
Genetic Fitness
Inclusive Fitness
Kin Selection
Models, Biological
Nesting Behavior
Parental Manipulation
Reproduction
Social Behavior
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Summary:One of the hallmarks of eusociality is that workers forego their own reproduction to assist their mother in raising siblings. This seemingly altruistic behaviour may benefit workers if gains in indirect fitness from rearing siblings outweigh the loss of direct fitness. If worker presence is advantageous to mothers, however, eusociality may evolve without net benefits to workers. Indirect fitness benefits are often cited as evidence for the importance of inclusive fitness in eusociality, but have rarely been measured in natural populations. We compared inclusive fitness of alternative social strategies in the tropical sweat bee, Megalopta genalis, for which eusociality is optional. Our results show that workers have significantly lower inclusive fitness than females that found their own nests. In mathematical simulations based on M. genalis field data, eusociality cannot evolve with reduced intra-nest relatedness. The simulated distribution of alternative social strategies matched observed distributions of M. genalis social strategies when helping behaviour was simulated as the result of maternal manipulation, but not as worker altruism. Thus, eusociality in M. genalis is best explained through kin selection, but the underlying mechanism is likely maternal manipulation.
ISSN:0962-8452
1471-2954
DOI:10.1098/rspb.2014.2886