TY - JOUR
T1 - Worker policing in the bee Apis florea
AU - Halling, Luke A.
AU - Oldroyd, Benjamin P.
AU - Wattanachaiyingcharoen, Wandee
AU - Barron, Andrew B.
AU - Nanork, Piyamas
AU - Wongsiri, Siriwat
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - Apis florea is a single-combed, open-nesting, dwarf honeybee indigenous to Asia. In common with other species of this genus, A. florea is highly polyandrous, and is therefore predicted to curtail worker reproduction by mutual policing mechanisms that keep worker reproduction at an extremely low level. Policing mechanisms could involve destruction of workers' eggs or offspring, or aggression toward those workers that are reproductively active. We show that in A. florea, worker-laid eggs are eliminated approximately twice as fast as queen-laid eggs, indicating that A. florea uses oophagy of worker-laid eggs as a mechanism of worker policing. Genetic analysis of four colonies indicated that all males produced were sons of queens, not workers. Dissections of 800 workers, from four colonies, did not reveal any significant levels of ovary activation. These results suggest that worker policing is an effective component of the mechanisms that maintain worker sterility in this species. Furthermore, they suggest that worker policing via oophagy of worker-laid eggs is pleisiomorphic for the genus.
AB - Apis florea is a single-combed, open-nesting, dwarf honeybee indigenous to Asia. In common with other species of this genus, A. florea is highly polyandrous, and is therefore predicted to curtail worker reproduction by mutual policing mechanisms that keep worker reproduction at an extremely low level. Policing mechanisms could involve destruction of workers' eggs or offspring, or aggression toward those workers that are reproductively active. We show that in A. florea, worker-laid eggs are eliminated approximately twice as fast as queen-laid eggs, indicating that A. florea uses oophagy of worker-laid eggs as a mechanism of worker policing. Genetic analysis of four colonies indicated that all males produced were sons of queens, not workers. Dissections of 800 workers, from four colonies, did not reveal any significant levels of ovary activation. These results suggest that worker policing is an effective component of the mechanisms that maintain worker sterility in this species. Furthermore, they suggest that worker policing via oophagy of worker-laid eggs is pleisiomorphic for the genus.
KW - Apis florea
KW - Oophagy
KW - Polyandry
KW - Worker policing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0035026375&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s002650100325
DO - 10.1007/s002650100325
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0035026375
SN - 0340-5443
VL - 49
SP - 509
EP - 513
JO - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
JF - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
IS - 6
ER -