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Science 29 April 1977:
Vol. 196. no. 4289, pp. 494 - 500
DOI: 10.1126/science.196.4289.494
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Articles

Local Mate Competition and Parental Investment in Social Insects

Richard D. Alexander 1 and Paul W. Sherman 2

1 Professor of biological sciences and curator of insects at the Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109
2 Miller postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Zoology, University of California, Berkeley 94720

Efforts to develop formulas for contrasting genetic interests of workers and queens in social Hymenoptera are complicated by many factors, including multiple matings by queens, oviposition by unmated females, and mating rivalry among genetic relatives (Hamilton's "local mate competition"). Because of haplodiploid sex determination in Hymenoptera, when such influences are absent, queens benefit from 1:1 sex ratios of investment (male: female) in reproductive offspring, workers from 1:3 ratios among reproductive siblings. Reports of variable ratios, including many well above 1:3, and female biases in nonsocial Hymenoptera and diplodiploid termites, implicate local mate competition and raises questions about previous interpretations that workers have their way.


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