Lecture 16- Policing and conflict resolution in social insects

Question 1

potential conflict

Answer 1

any difference in the optima of individuals

Question 2

actual conflict

Answer 2

overt conflict among individuals with different optima

Question 3

conflict resolution

Answer 3

an outcome which reduces the proportion of resources used on conflict to a small amount

Question 4

policing

Answer 4

a system of responses to selfish behaviour which help to resolve reproductive conflict- e.g. physical aggression, egg removal

Question 5

what does the debate around caste fate revolve around

Answer 5

conflict between workers and totipotent larva- especially when there can be queen replacement- as larvae ‘should’ want to be queen

Question 6

how does paternity influence conflict

Answer 6

as the queen mates more times, colony relatedness drops, more incentive to become queen

Question 7

bee species which seem to produce an overabundance of queens, what % are queens

Answer 7

Melipona stingless bees- 20% queens

Question 8

what happens to most queen larvae

Answer 8

get beheaded and thrown away by workers

Question 9

how do honey bees control queen development

Answer 9

royal jelly and queen cell, allows queen development and is controlled by workers, still raise approx 10 and they fight

Question 10

what is the fundamental difference in queen developing strategies

Answer 10

based on either coercion or kinship- some combo of both, but proportions vary

Question 11

why is there conflict over male production

Answer 11

haplodiploidy means relatedness is uneven- workers more related to own sons than queens, so suppression of mating is required

Question 12

different ways conflict over male reproduction can be managed

Answer 12

worker reproduction is favoured when there is single queen mating- so policing is needed
multiple mating means it is more beneficial to have more brothers, so worker eggs are more likely to be destroyed

Question 13

is policing universal?

Answer 13

no, but has evolved convergently multiple times

Question 14

when does policing over male reproduction evolve

Answer 14

when there are multiply mated queens

Question 15

potential consequences of male production conflict

Answer 15

can lead to queen loss- queens getting killed by workers to ‘win’ the conflict- seems to be a real correlation between male production conflict and the number of colonies without a queen

Question 16

examples of enforcement strategies

Answer 16

a melifera workers destroying colonies, evading policing by mimicking the queen