Cooperation and coercion in social insects

Question 1

Who found support for monogamy hypothesis as of the 9 independent origins of eusociality in insects, 8 have ancestors with strict monogamy, meaning polyandry is derived?

Answer 1

Hughes et al., 2008

Question 2

Who found that in wood ants, singly-mated queens produced female-biased and multiply-mated queens produced male-biased broods as workers killed male and female offspring respectively? This was due to relatedness.

Answer 2

Sundstrom et al., 1994

Question 3

Policing by workers enforces altruism. Some workers can ignore the pheromone that causes ovarian degeneration and have their own unfertilised eggs (sons). Although workers having their own sons increases individual relatedness, the colony becomes less productive when more individuals reproduce. Therefore workers will kill worker offspring. Therefore colonies with coerced altruism show high policing and high relatedness of the whole colony. Who found this?

Answer 3

Ratnieks and Wenseleers, 2007.

Question 4

In the Vespula wasp, eggs treated with 3-MeC29 were left alone by workers; this is the queen’s pheromone that causes ovarian degeneration and has been co-opted for egg recognition. This is how the queen enforces altruism. Who found this?

Answer 4

Oi et al., 2015