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Multiple paternity or multiple queens: two routes to greater intracolonial genetic diversity in the eusocial Hymenoptera.

Hughes WO, Ratnieks FL, Oldroyd BP

Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.

Understanding the evolution of multiple mating by females (polyandry) is an important question in behavioural ecology. Most leading explanations for polyandry by social insect queens are based upon a postulated fitness benefit from increased intracolonial genetic diversity, which also arises when colonies are headed by multiple queens (polygyny). An indirect test of the genetic diversity hypotheses is therefore provided by the relationship between polyandry and polygyny across species, which should be negative if the genetic diversity hypotheses are correct. Here, we conduct a powerful comparative investigation of the relationship between polyandry and polygyny for 241 species of eusocial Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps). We find a clear and significant negative relationship between polyandry and polygyny after controlling for phylogeny. These results strongly suggest that fitness benefits resulting from increased intracolonial genetic diversity have played an important role in the evolution of polyandry, and possibly polygyny, in social insects.

Published 21 April 2008 in J Evol Biol.
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Articles on Paternity Testing published 3 April 2008:

DISASSORTATIVE MATING, SEXUAL SPECIALIZATION AND THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER DIMORPHISM IN HETERODICHOGAMOUS ACER OPALUS.   Evolution Int J Org Evolution.

In sexually polymorphic species, the morphs are maintained by frequency-dependent selection through disassortative mating. In heterodichogamous populations, where disassortative mating occurs between the protandrous and protogynous morphs, a decrease in female fitness in one morph is hypothesized to drive sexual specialization in the other morph, resulting in dimorphic populations. We test these ideas in a population of the heterodichogamous species, Acer opalus. We assessed both prospective ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Paternity Testing published 27 March 2008:

Exploring the developmental overnutrition hypothesis using parental-offspring associations and FTO as an instrumental variable.   PLoS Med, 5(3): e33.

BACKGROUND: The developmental overnutrition hypothesis suggests that greater maternal obesity during pregnancy results in increased offspring adiposity in later life. If true, this would result in the obesity epidemic progressing across generations irrespective of environmental or genetic changes. It is therefore important to robustly test this hypothesis. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We explored this hypothesis by comparing the associations of maternal and paternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Paternity Testing published 12 March 2008:

Polyandry facilitates postcopulatory inbreeding avoidance in house mice.   Evolution Int J Org Evolution, 62(3): 603-11.

The avoidance of genetic incompatibilities between parental genotypes has been proposed to account for the evolution of polyandry. An extension of this hypothesis suggests polyandry may provide an opportunity for females to avoid the cost of inbreeding by exploiting postcopulatory mechanisms that bias paternity toward unrelated male genotypes. Here we test the inbreeding avoidance hypothesis in house mice by experimentally manipulating genetic compatibility via matings between siblings and ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Paternity Testing published 6 March 2008:

No postcopulatory response to inbreeding by male crickets.   Biol Lett, 4(2): 183-5.

Previous studies of the cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus have shown a paternity bias towards non-sibling males. Although non-kin-biased paternity could represent a mechanism of postcopulatory inbreeding avoidance by females, evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) models of ejaculate evolution also predict that males should reduce their expenditure on the ejaculate when mating with their sisters. Here we provide a test of these models, finding that male crickets invest equally in matings with ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Paternity Testing published 3 March 2008:

Genetic analysis of 17 Y-chromosomal STRs haplotypes of Chinese Tibetan ethnic group residing in Qinghai province of China.   Forensic Sci Int, 175(2): 238-43.

We have co-amplified and analyzed 17 Y-chromosomal STRs loci including European 'extended haplotypes' (DYS19, DYS389 I, DYS389 II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385a,b, DYS438, and DYS439) and also six additional loci DYS437, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635 and YGATA H4 in a population sample of 167 healthy unrelated autochthonous male individuals of Chinese Tibetan ethnic minority group residing in Qinghai province of China using a multiplex PCR system. The gene diversity values for the ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Paternity Testing published 29 February 2008:

Males with high genetic similarity to females sire more offspring in sperm competition in Peron's tree frog Litoria peronii.   Proc Biol Sci, 275(1637): 971-8.

Recent work has confirmed that genetic compatibility among mates can be an important determinant of siring success in sperm competition experiments and in free-ranging populations. Most of this work points towards mate choice of less related mates. However, there may also be the potential for mate choice for intermediate or even genetically similar mates to prevent outbreeding depression or hybridization with closely related taxa. We studied relatedness effects on post-copulatory gametic choice ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Paternity Testing published 21 February 2008:

Asymmetrical mating patterns and the evolution of biased style-morph ratios in a tristylous daffodil.   Genet Res, 90(1): 3-15.

SummaryNon-random mating in plant populations can be influenced by numerous reproductive and demographic factors, including floral morphology and inter-plant distance. Here, we investigate patterns of outcrossed mating through male function in Narcissus triandrus, a tristylous, bee-pollinated wild daffodil from the Iberian Peninsula, to test pollen transfer models which predict that floral morphology promotes asymmetrical mating and biased morph ratios. Unlike other tristylous species, N. ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Paternity Testing published 13 February 2008:

Patterns of paternity and group fission in wild multimale mountain gorilla groups.   Am J Phys Anthropol, 135(3): 263-74.

To understand variation among social systems, it is essential to know the relative reproductive success of individuals in group-living species. Particularly interesting for such studies are taxa such as mountain gorillas in which both one-male and multimale groups are common, because of the opportunity to estimate the costs and benefits to males of pursuing different reproductive strategies. We genotyped 68 individuals from two groups of multimale mountain gorilla groups in Bwindi Impenetrable ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

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