Sexual dimorphism in the Hymenoptera
Sexual dimorphism in the Hymenoptera
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发表时间：
1994
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通讯作者：
J. Seger
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作者：
J. Seger
Spectacular sex differences of many kinds occur abundantly among the wasps, bees and ants that make up the insect order Hymenoptera. In some cases these differences are so extreme that males and females of the same species have been classified in different genera for decades, until a chance observation of mating, or emergence from a single nest, establishes their identity. Even where the sexes are similar in morphology they lead very different lives. The hard-working females hunt for prey or other larval provisions, and in many taxa they carry these provisions back to a nest that they have constructed to protect their offspring. The males, by contrast, lead short lives (sometimes nasty and brutish), devoted to the single purpose of inseminating females. Countless variations on this theme have evolved during the long and successful history of the order, and other features of hymenopteran biology have allowed these sex differences of ecology to be translated into equally striking sex differences of behavior, morphology and physiology. Hymenoptera provide excellent illustrations of the classical principles of sexual selection, and we believe that they also present opportunities to extend the study of sex differences in several directions. These opportunities are created by four basic characteristics of the group. First, the sexes tend to be more different from each other in Hymenoptera than they are in most other animals (see Figures 4.1, 4.4, 4.7, 4.9 and 4.10). Some possible reasons for this tendency will be mentioned below, but whatever the cause, it means that the ‘signal’ to be studied is relatively strong. Second, alternative phenotypes also occur within one sex or the other in many species (see Figures 4.2, 4.3 and 4.9). The most familiar example of intrasexual dimorphism is the difference between the female reproductive and worker castes in many social taxa, and in some ants there are further distinctions among two or more castes of workers. But there are also
