Abstract
Diploid males in haplo-diploid insects are sterile, because they produce diploid sperm. Our previous report revealed that early males of the Japanese paper wasp Polistes chinensis antennalis are diploid but did not reveal how often this occurs. We analyzed the genotypes of early males using six microsatellite markers. Two of the 41 early males (5%) from six colonies were haploid, but the other males were diploid. This evidence suggests that we can ignore the reproductive success of the early males of P. chinensis antennalis.
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Acknowledgements
We express our sincere thanks to B. Kranz for reviewing and improving our English. We are very grateful to K. Kudo for his comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Comments of two anonymous reviewers were helpful in improving our manuscript. This study was supported in part by grants-in-aid from the Japan Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (11440228, 11833001 and 12304048).
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Tsuchida, K., Saigo, T., Tsujita, S. et al. Early male production is not linked to a reproductive strategy in the Japanese paper wasp, Polistes chinensis antennalis (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). J Ethol 22, 119–121 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-003-0109-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-003-0109-8