BIO318Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Polistes, Eusociality, Maternal Sensitivity
Document Summary
Factors leading to the origin of eusociality: haplodiploidity has been debunked, workers warn the scout, why hymenopta evolved to eusociality. Mother and offspring: maternal care; stingers. Toxin that will paralyze prey, but eusocial venom are used to drive away other predators. Female competition, reproductive skew and selfishness in eusocial insects: evolution of honest signals. Polisted carolina: most foundresses are full sisters: not as aggressive as hornets, more than one queen is needed to found a successful nest, hooks that works as a walking stick. Different markings of the females; the dominant one will chew up the other female"s eggs so that her eggs are the only ones around and then the rest becomes workers. Groups of (totipotent) overwintered females found nests in spring: get promoted to direct fitness by being the new queen. It"s hard for one queen to create a nest: predation risk, hard to get everything set up in the first 30 days.