Friday, October 23, 2009
October 24,: Kin Selection in Queens and Workers
Kin Selection can cause conflict between queens and workers if the workers want to take her position or are not pulling their weight in the colony. Most of the time the queen will win because of her dominance in the colony; but if she becomes weak and another female worker can take her place the selfish gene hypothesis may take over from the worker to the queen status. Other conflicts are that some workers may not feed the larvae the correct types of food to ensure a new queen will be born or a haploid male for the existing queen to mate with; and this may lead to conflict between the queen and the workers. The rogue worker or workers may not have an altruistic gene to participate in the colony and may wish to become a queen and start a new colony or take over the existing one.
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Nice description of conflicts that arise between workers and queens. What do you think about Dawkins description of queens genes favouring 1:1 ratio of reproductives vs. worker genes favouring a 3:1 ratio of reproductives?
ReplyDeleteNice descrition of conflict however you might want to read what dawkins talks about. He meantions that the gueen is in favor of a 1:1 ratio and workers favor a 3:1 ratio.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job on describing the conflicts between the workers and the queens but also what about when a worker bee tries to lay an egg in the nest?
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