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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on July 13, 2006
Behavioral Ecology 2006 17(6):873-880; doi:10.1093/beheco/arl020
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Colony genetic structure in a facultatively eusocial hover wasp

Alan Bolton, Seirian Sumner, Gavin Shreeves, Maurizio Casiraghi and Jeremy Field

Department of Biology, University College London, Wolfson House, 4 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HE, UK

Address correspondence to J. Field. E-mail: jeremy.field{at}ucl.ac.uk. Seirian Sumner is now at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, United Kingdom. Maurizio Casiraghi is now at the Dipartimento di Biologia Animale, Universita' degli Studi di Milano, via Celoria 26, 20133 Milan, Italy.

The degree of genetic heterogeneity among the individuals in an animal society depends on the society's genetic structure. Genetic heterogeneity, in turn, means that group members will differ in their reproductive objectives and conflicts over reproduction may arise. The resolution of these conflicts may be reflected in the way that reproduction is partitioned between potential reproductives. We used 5 microsatellite loci to investigate genetic structure and reproductive skew in 17 nests of the Malaysian hover wasp, Parischnogaster alternata. Parischnogaster alternata colonies are small (1–10 females), and all adult colony members are capable of mating and producing offspring. We found that colonies tended to consist of closely related individuals and that at any one time the production of both female and male offspring was nearly always monopolized by a single dominant female, despite considerable variation between nests in parameters predicted to affect skew. Subordinate females that remained in their natal colonies obtained indirect fitness benefits by helping to raise offspring to which they were related. Subordinate females also appeared to be positioned within an age-based queue for inheritance of the dominant egg-laying position. We suggest that the high skew in P. alternata may result from strong ecological constraints on solitary nesting, high relatedness, and a relatively high probability that subordinates will eventually inherit the position of dominance.

Key words: eusociality, Parischnogaster, relatedness, reproductive skew, Stenogastrinae.


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