Conflict and Cooperation in Honey Bee Reproduction

在蜜蜂群体中，工蜂在生理上有能力产下发育成雄性的卵，但在有蜂王的蜂群中，几乎所有的繁殖，无论是雄性还是雌性，都是通过蜂后进行的。这似乎与个体工蚁的基因利益相冲突，工蚁与自己的儿子的亲缘关系比与母亲的儿子更密切，因此可能通过自己产卵获得更大的进化适应性。维舍尔博士的研究将考察工蚁繁殖不足背后的相互作用，并将检验这样一种假设，即这种群落级的生殖合作是姐妹工蚁相互“监督”的结果。“监管”，即蜜蜂为了支持母亲而阻止姐妹生育，可能会提高尝试个人繁殖的成本，降低潜在利益，从而重新调整工人内在的冲突利益。这种“强制合作”反过来将促进合作行为的进一步演变，通过合作增加群体资源，而不是操纵群体资源用于个人繁殖，从而增强对劳动者的选择，以增加他们的包容性适应能力。蜜蜂作为蜂蜜的生产者，特别是作为许多农作物的传粉者，具有重要的经济意义。维舍尔博士的研究将有助于了解它们的生殖生物学，这可能会被证明对蜜蜂育种或具有不良特征的蜜蜂的基因控制有用，比如非洲化的蜜蜂。这项研究也将对社会行为的一般理论做出贡献。了解昆虫社会中个体之间的遗传冲突是如何解决的，将有助于揭示高度合作的社会行为是如何演变的。

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.