ROW: DNA Fingerprinting of an Halictine Bee

在膜翅目(蚂蚁、黄蜂和蜜蜂)社会制度的研究中，蜂群动态和蜂王和工蚁之间关于雄性幼虫生产的冲突是核心问题。工蚁(和女王)的成功在很大程度上受到直接的工蚁繁殖的影响。如果一个社会物种中的群体通常包括直接繁殖的工蚁，那么能够从形态和行为两个方面描述这些工蚁的特征，以便了解控制工蚁产卵的最接近的机制是非常重要的。为了做到这一点，有必要明确地确定下层工人的身份，并清楚地量化他们生产的后代。一种名为DNA“指纹”的分子遗传学技术可以用来获得必要的信息。DNA“指纹”是单独特定的DNA片段模式，可以用来确定哪一只雌性是由一个群体产生的任何后代的母亲。这些独特但可遗传的DNA模式(“指纹”)在雌性和她们共同抚养的后代之间的比较将被用来准确地确定哪些雌性是哪些后代的母亲。这些信息将与行为和形态数据结合使用，以调查工人生殖的最近控制，总体目的是了解社会制度的演变。

Colony dynamics and conflict between queens and workers over the production of male brood are central issues in the study of social systems in the Hymenoptera (ants, wasps and bees). Success of workers (and of the queen) is heavily influenced by direct, worker reproduction. If colonies in a social species typically include workers that are reproducing directly, it is of great importance to be able to characterize those workers in both morphological and behavioral terms in order to understand the proximate mechanisms controlling worker egg laying. In order to do this it is necessary to unambiguously identify laying workers and also to clearly quantify the brood they produce. A molecular genetics technique, DNA "fingerprinting", can be used to obtain the necessary information. DNA "fingerprints" are individually specific patterns of DNA fragments that can be used to determine which female is the mother of any of the offspring produced by a colony. Comparison of these distinctive yet heritable DNA patterns ("fingerprints") among females and the offspring they jointly rear will be used to determine precisely which females are the mothers of which offspring. This information will be used in combination with behavioral and morphological data to investigate the proximate control of worker reproduction with the overall aim of understanding the evolution of social systems.