Conflict and Cooperation in Honey Bee Reproduction

蜜蜂繁殖中的冲突与合作

• 批准号: 9009325
• 负责人: P. Kirk Visscher
• 金额: $ 2.86万
• 依托单位: University of California-Riverside
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1990
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1990-07-01 至 1993-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9009325&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Conflict; Cooperation; Honey; Bee; Reproduction

In a honey bee colony, the workers are physiologically capable of laying eggs that develop into males, but in colonies with a queen nearly all reproduction, both males and females, is through the queen. This seemingly conflicts with the genetic interest of individual workers, who are more closely related to their own sons than to their mother's sons, and might thus gain greater evolutionary fitness by laying eggs themselves. Dr. Visscher's research will examine what interactions underlie the lack of worker reproduction, and will test the hypothesis that this colony-level cooperation in reproduction is the result of mutual "policing" by sister workers. "Policing," or bees preventing the reproduction of their sisters in favor of their mother, may raise the costs and lower the potential benefits of attempting personal reproduction, so that the inherently conflicting interests of workers are realigned. This "forced cooperation" in turn would facilitate further evolution of cooperative behavior, enhancing selection for workers to increase their inclusive fitness by increasing colony resources through cooperation, rather than manipulating colony resources toward their personal reproduction. Honey bees are of economic importance as producers of honey and especially as pollinators of many agricultural crops. Dr. Visscher's research will contribute to knowlege of their reproductive biology, which may prove useful in bee breeding or in genetic control of honey bees with undesirable traits, such as Africanized honey bees. This research also will contribute to the general theory of social behavior. Understanding how genetic conflicts among individuals in an insect society are resolved will shed light on how highly cooperative social behavior has evolved.

在一个蜂群中，工蜂在生理上有能力 产卵，发育成男性，但在殖民地与女王 几乎所有的繁殖，无论是男性还是女性，都是通过 女王 这似乎与遗传学的兴趣相冲突， 个体工人，他们与自己的工人关系更密切， 儿子比母亲的儿子更有可能获得更大的利益。 通过产卵来适应进化。 Visscher医生 研究将研究什么样的相互作用的基础上缺乏 工人繁殖，并将测试假设，这是 繁殖中的群体级合作是相互作用的结果， 由工人姐妹“监督”。 “警察”，或蜜蜂防止 他们的姐妹有利于他们的母亲繁殖，可能会提高 成本和降低潜在的好处，试图个人 生殖，因此， 工人们重新调整。 这种“强迫合作”反过来又会 促进合作行为的进一步发展， 选择工人，以提高他们的包容性健身， 通过合作增加殖民地资源，而不是 操纵殖民地的资源来繁衍后代 蜜蜂作为蜂蜜的生产者具有重要的经济意义， 尤其是作为许多农作物的授粉者。 博士 Visscher的研究将有助于了解他们的 生殖生物学，这可能证明在蜜蜂育种或 在遗传控制具有不良性状的蜜蜂中， 非洲蜜蜂 本研究也将有助于一般理论的 社会行为 了解基因冲突是如何 昆虫社会中的个体所解决的问题 高度合作的社会行为是如何进化的