Sexual selection in <i>Apis</i> bees

Baer, Boris

doi:10.1051/apido:2005013

Cited by 121 publications

(144 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…The zebrafish Danio rerio, which has one of the lower sperm concentrations in fish, 480,000 per ejaculate, has a sperm:egg ratio of 48,000:1, whereas that of sea trout Salmo trutta is 1.79ϫ10 9 :1 (Stockley et al, 1996). Sperm:egg ratios in the yellow seahorse are therefore more comparable to sperm use efficiency in Hymenoptera social insects (ants, bees and wasps) than to other fish species: in the fire ant Solenopsis invicta queen the ratio is 3:1 (Tschinkel and Porter, 1988) and in the honeybee queen (genus Apis) 3-5:1 (Baer, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Dimorphic sperm and the unlikely route to fertilisation in the yellow seahorse

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Dzyuba

Cliffe

et al. 2007

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARY Uniquely among vertebrates, seahorses and pipefishes (Family Syngnathidae)incubate their eggs within a male brood pouch. This has contributed to a widespread, but poorly founded belief, that the eggs are fertilised using spermatozoa that are deposited directly into the brood pouch via an internal sperm duct. Anatomical dissections showed, however, not only that direct sperm deposition into the pouch is physically impossible, but that spermatozoa must somehow travel a significant distance (>4 mm) outside the body of the male, to reach and fertilise eggs in the pouch. Observations of courtship and mating behaviour also revealed that the pouch closes immediately after mating, and that sperm transfer must occur within a time window of no more than 6 s. In addition to this, the yellow seahorse produces extraordinarily low quantities of dimorphic spermatozoa, but is nevertheless highly fertile and can produce broods that exceed 100 embryos. The entire fertilisation process in seahorses is therefore uniquely efficient among vertebrates, yet paradoxically involves several steps that would seem to complicate, and even appear to prevent, the interaction of the gametes. Although we are still unable to describe the exact fertilisation mechanism, we speculate that spermatozoa are ejaculated into a mixture of ovarian fluid and eggs, while the male and female are in close contact. Thereafter, this mixture must enter the pouch, whereupon the spermatozoa encounter seawater. These observations also support the view, indirectly inferred in previous publications, that sperm competition in seahorses is not only non-existent but impossible.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Dimorphic sperm and the unlikely route to fertilisation in the yellow seahorse

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Dzyuba

Cliffe

et al. 2007

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…There will thus be an unambiguous male fitness benefit in delivering highly viable sperm with optimal motility and a consistent queen fitness benefit in evolving chemical gradients that make sperm run the gauntlet while being underway to the final (lifetime) storage organ, so she can retain the best possible fraction [13,78,79]. It would therefore be virtually impossible for eusocial hymenopteran sperm to lose tails as queens are expected to have evolved means to discard the least motile sperm.…”

Section: Eusocial Mating Separates Sex and Society And Establishes Unmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond promiscuity: mate-choice commitments in social breeding

Boomsma

2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

129

162

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Obligate eusociality with distinct caste phenotypes has evolved from strictly monogamous sub-social ancestors in ants, some bees, some wasps and some termites. This implies that no lineage reached the most advanced form of social breeding, unless helpers at the nest gained indirect fitness values via siblings that were identical to direct fitness via offspring. The complete lack of re-mating promiscuity equalizes sex-specific variances in reproductive success. Later, evolutionary developments towards multiple queen-mating retained lifetime commitment between sexual partners, but reduced male variance in reproductive success relative to female's, similar to the most advanced vertebrate cooperative breeders. Here, I (i) discuss some of the unique and highly peculiar mating system adaptations of eusocial insects; (ii) address ambiguities that remained after earlier reviews and extend the monogamy logic to the evolution of soldier castes; (iii) evaluate the evidence for indirect fitness benefits driving the dynamics of (in)vertebrate cooperative breeding, while emphasizing the fundamental differences between obligate eusociality and cooperative breeding; (iv) infer that lifetime commitment is a major driver towards higher levels of organization in bodies, colonies and mutualisms. I argue that evolutionary informative definitions of social systems that separate direct and indirect fitness benefits facilitate transparency when testing inclusive fitness theory.

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“…Honeybees display a particularly striking mating behavior, which has long fascinated beekeepers and researchers alike (Butler, 1609;Jean-Prost, 1957;Ruttner, 1957;Ruttner and Ruttner, 1972;Koeniger et al, 1979;Baer, 2005). During the mating season, sexually mature drones fly out on warm and sunny afternoons and gather high in the air at discrete congregation areas located usually 10-40 m above ground, with a diameter of 30-200 m (Loper et al, 1987;Loper et al, 1992;Koeniger and Koeniger, 2004).…”

Section: Research Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Honeybee drones are attracted by groups of consexuals in a walking simulator

Brandstaetter

Bastin

Sandoz

2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

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During the mating season, honeybee males, the drones, gather in congregation areas 10-40 m above ground. When a receptive female, a queen, enters the congregation, drones are attracted to her by queen-produced pheromones and visual cues and attempt to mate with the queen in mid-air. It is still unclear how drones and queens find the congregations. Visual cues on the horizon are most probably used for long-range orientation. For shorter-range orientation, however, attraction by a drone-produced aggregation pheromone has been proposed, yet so far its existence has not been confirmed conclusively. The low accessibility of congregation areas high up in the air is a major hurdle and precise control of experimental conditions often remains unsatisfactory in field studies. Here, we used a locomotion compensator-based walking simulator to investigate drones' innate odor preferences under controlled laboratory conditions. We tested behavioral responses of drones to 9-oxo-2-decenoic acid (9-ODA), the major queen-produced sexual attractant, and to queen mandibular pheromone (QMP), an artificial blend of 9-ODA and several other queen-derived components. While 9-ODA strongly dominates the odor bouquet of virgin queens, QMP rather resembles the bouquet of mated queens. In our assay, drones were attracted by 9-ODA, but not by QMP. We also investigated the potential attractiveness of male-derived odors by testing drones' orientation responses to the odor bouquet of groups of 10 living drones or workers. Our results demonstrate that honeybee drones are attracted by groups of other drones (but not by workers), which may indicate a role of drone-emitted cues for the formation of congregations.

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Sexual selection in Apis bees

Cited by 121 publications

References 90 publications

Dimorphic sperm and the unlikely route to fertilisation in the yellow seahorse

Dimorphic sperm and the unlikely route to fertilisation in the yellow seahorse

Beyond promiscuity: mate-choice commitments in social breeding

Honeybee drones are attracted by groups of consexuals in a walking simulator

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