Ancestral Monogamy Shows Kin Selection Is Key to the Evolution of Eusociality
By W. Hughes, Benjamin P. Oldroyd, Madeleine Beekman, Francis L. W. Ratnieks. Science, 2008
650 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Close relatedness has long been considered crucial to the evolution of eusociality. However, it has recently been suggested that close relatedness may be a consequence, rather than a cause, of eusociality. We tested this idea with a comparative analysis of female mating frequencies in 267 species of eusocial bees, wasps, and ants. We found that mating with a single male, which maximizes relatedness, is ancestral for all eight independent eusocial lineages that we investigated. Mating with multiple males is always derived. Furthermore, we found that high polyandry (>2 effective mates) occurs only in lineages whose workers have lost reproductive totipotency. These results provide the first evidence that monogamy was critical in the evolution of eusociality, strongly supporting the prediction of inclusive fitness theory.
Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/97550c1dd820ee3c98a56baf60d7524777ff7d81
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Citations in the corpus
- Does the field of animal personality provide any new insights for behavioral ecology (2017, background): “Given the importance of high relatedness for the evolution of sociality (Hamilton 1964a, 1964b; Hughes et al. 2008), such “dilution” of relatedness requires an adaptive explanation.”
- Report Cryptic Plasticity Underlies a Major Evolutionary Transition (2010, neutral): “Foundresses normally mate once [27], soon aftermaturation in autumn, then store their mate’s sperm for use throughout life.”
- Sixteen common misconceptions about the evolution of cooperation in humans (2011, neutral): “…Avilés, 1993 Gardner et al., 2009 Eusociality Wilson & Wilson, 2007; Wilson & Hölldobler, 2005 Foster et al., 2006; Helanterä & Bargum, 2007; Hughes et al., 2008 Strong reciprocity Bowles & Gintis, 2004; Bowles et al., 2003; Boyd & Richerson, 2002; Boyd et al., 2005; Fehr & Fischbacher,…”