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Colony structure and reproductive sharing among queens in a tropical paper wasp, Polistes olivaceus

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Abstract

Reproductive partitioning among group members is a key feature in social Hymenoptera. We investigated the genetic colony structure of a tropical paper wasp Polistes olivaceus, with an emphasis on variation in the number of queens and reproductive sharing among queens. Among 22 P. olivaceus colonies, 6 were monogynous, 9 polygynous, and 7 were queenless. Adults and brood (eggs and larvae) were genotyped based on six polymorphic microsatellite loci. In each of the polygynous colonies, progenies were assigned to their mothers using maximum-likelihood methods. Nestmate queens were full sisters. The vast majority of reproduction appeared to be monopolized by the dominant queen (α), and the overall reproductive skews were 0.63 ± 0.04 (B index) and 0.97 ± 0.02 (S c index). Although all nestmate queens had equal reproductive potential, the high magnitude of reproductive skew was enigmatic in this species. Although 9.55 ± 2.07 workers contained developed ovaries in 11 of 15 queen-right colonies, they were unrelated to the nestmate queens but related to each other as full sisters, suggesting that they were the remaining offspring of superseded queens. In 2 of the 11 colonies, we detected male eggs produced by reproductive workers. On average, 7.27 % of the total genotyped male eggs were derived from reproductive workers among the colonies. These results suggest three possibilities regarding the presence of reproductive workers in the P. olivaceus colonies: drifting between colonies, putative remaining offspring from superseded queens, and the offspring of unrelated females who joined the colonies and reproduced there. We found no worker-derived larvae or adult males, suggesting that male eggs were removed by nestmates at some point between oviposition and hatching.

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Acknowledgments

We thank everyone who helped to collect P. olivaceus colonies in Bangladesh. We sincerely thank all members of the Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Gifu University, for their cooperation in conducting this study, especially Dr. Y. KonDo who provided valuable assistance in data analysis. We give special thanks to two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that significantly improved our manuscript. Finally, we greatly appreciate the financial support of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MONBUKAGAKUSHO), Japan.

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  1. The United Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Gifu University, Yanagido 1-1, Gifu, 501-1193, Japan

    M. M. Uddin

  2. Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Faculty of Applied Biological Sciences, Gifu University, Yanagido 1-1, Gifu, 501-1193, Japan

    K. Tsuchida

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Uddin, M.M., Tsuchida, K. Colony structure and reproductive sharing among queens in a tropical paper wasp, Polistes olivaceus . Insect. Soc. 59, 401–410 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-012-0233-y

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