Genetic support for the evolutionary theory of reproductive transactions in social wasps.

ABSTRACT: Recent evolutionary models of reproductive partitioning within animal societies (known as 'optimal skew', 'concessions' or 'transactional' models) predict that a dominant individual will often yield some fraction of the group's reproduction to a subordinate as an incentive to stay in the group and help rear the dominant's offspring. These models quantitatively predict how the magnitude of the subordinate's 'staying incentive' will vary with the genetic relatedness between dominant and subordinate, the overall expected group output and the subordinate's expected output if it breeds solitarily. We report that these predictions accord remarkably well with the observed reproductive partitioning between conesting dominant and subordinate queens in the social paper wasp Polistes fuscatus. In par

SUBMITTER: Reeve HK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1690491 | biostudies-literature | 2000 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature