Worker reproductive parasitism and drift in the western honeybee Apis mellifera
Worker reproductive parasitism and drift in the western honeybee Apis mellifera
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DOI：
10.1007/s00265-009-0858-7
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发表时间：
2010-01-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Oldroyd, Benjamin P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chapman, Nadine C.;Beekman, Madeleine;Oldroyd, Benjamin P.
当蜜蜂（Apis spp.）当蜂群失去蜂王，无法再培育新的蜂王时，一些工蜂会激活卵巢产卵。当一个殖民地有一个女王（即，几乎所有的工蜂产下的蛋都被吃掉了，但是当绝望的没有蜂王时，工蜂变得更能容忍工蜂产下的蛋，并把其中的一些养给成年雄蜂。这种增加的耐受性使得无蜂王的群体容易受到工蜂生殖寄生的影响，其中无关的工蜂进入殖民地并产卵。在这里，我们表明，无关（非出生）工人的比例显着下降后，意大利蜜蜂殖民地成为无女王。其余的非出生工人可能与纳塔尔工人一样有激活的卵巢，但他们比纳塔尔工人产生更多的卵子，导致非出生工人的生殖成功率显着提高。在第二个实验中，我们让无蜂王和有蜂王的工蚁选择留在自己的蚁群，或者加入附近的无蜂王或有蜂王的蚁群。实验的设置使得工人运动不太可能是由于简单的方向错误。很少有工蚁加入另一个蚁群，而且没有工蚁倾向于移入或移出无蜂王或有蜂王的蚁群，这与第一次实验中无蜂王后非出生工蚁的比例显著下降是一致的。
When a honeybee (Apis spp.) colony loses its queen and is unable to rear a new one, some of the workers activate their ovaries and produce eggs. When a colony has a queen (i.e., it is queenright) almost all worker-laid eggs are eaten, but when hopelessly queenless, the workers become more tolerant of worker-laid eggs and rear some of them to adult drones. This increased tolerance renders a queenless colony vulnerable to worker reproductive parasitism, wherein unrelated workers enter the colony and lay eggs. Here, we show that the proportion of unrelated (non-natal) workers significantly decreases after an Apis mellifera colony becomes queenless. The remaining non-natal workers are as likely to have activated ovaries as natal workers, yet they produce more eggs than natal workers, resulting in significantly higher reproductive success for non-natal workers. In a second experiment, we provided queenless and queenright workers with a choice to remain in their own colony or to join a queenless or queenright colony nearby. The experiment was set up such that worker movement was unlikely to be due to simple orientation errors. Very few workers joined another colony, and there was no preference for workers to drift into or out of queenless or queenright colonies, in accordance with the proportion of non-natal workers declining significantly after becoming queenless in the first experiment.