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Relatedness and sex ratio in a primitively eusocial halictine bee

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Abstract

Lasioglossum laevissimum was studied in Calgary, Alberta, where it is eusocial with one worker brood. Estimates of relatedness were obtained among various categories of nestmate based upon four polymorphic enzyme loci, two of which exhibited significant levels of linkage disequilibrium. Relatedness estimates among workers and among reproductive brood females were very close to the expected 0.75 value that obtains when nests are headed by one, singly mated queen. However, relatedness between workers and the reproductive brood females they reared was significantly lower than 0.75. A low frequency of orphaning with subsequent monopolisation of oviposition by one worker brood female in orphaned nests may explain these results. Workers were significantly more and queens significantly less closely related to male reproductives than expected if all males were to have resulted from queen-laid eggs. Orphaning and worker-produced males contribute to this result. The sex investment ratio was 1:2.2 in favour of females, in excellent agreement with the predictions based upon relative relatednesses between workers and reproductive brood males and females. Adaptive intercolony variation in investment ratios was detected: the sex ratio was more heavily female-biased in nests in which the relative relatedness asymmetry between workers and reproductive brood was more female-biased. The study species is the most weakly eusocial hymenopteran for which relatedness estimates and sex ratio data are available. With high relatedness among nestmates and a strongly female-biased sex ratio, this study suggests the importance of indirect fitness contributions in the early stages of social evolution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, York University, 4700 Keele St., M3J 1P3, N. York, Ontario, Canada

    Laurence Packer

  2. Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences, Mount Royal College, 4825 Richmond Rd. S.W., T3E 6K6, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Robin E. Owen

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. N.W., T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Robin E. Owen

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  1. Laurence Packer
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  2. Robin E. Owen
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Correspondence to: L. Packer

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Packer, L., Owen, R.E. Relatedness and sex ratio in a primitively eusocial halictine bee. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 34, 1–10 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00175452

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00175452

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