Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Survive
1.00
0.50
Not Survive
0.00
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Brood Viability (%)
Figure 4.4.
Survival of colonies over the winter was af ected by brood viability
resulting from homozygosity at the sex locus. h e sigmoid curve is the
relationship between brood viability and the probability of surviving the winter.
Note that the curve is sigmoid, not linear, and that the average brood viability is
in the concave part of the curve. h is is important for polyandry to evolve under
the sex-determination model for the evolution of polyandry. Reprinted with kind
permission from Springer Science+Business Media:
Behavioral Ecology and
Sociobiology,
“Sex determination and the evolution of polyandry in honey bees
(Apis mellifera)
,” 52(2), 2002, 143-150, Tarpy DR, Page RE, Fig. 1.
terminant of survival and reproductive output of colonies, and found a
concave relationship between brood viability and number of workers.
h is test validated the sex-determination hypothesis as one plausible
explanation for the evolution of polyandry in honey bees.
4.2.4 Dii culties with the Hypothesis
However, there are dii culties with the hypothesis. First, it would be
nice to have a single hypothesis that can also explain the extraordinary
recombination rate in the honey bee (Section 3.3)—a single hypothesis
