Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
two l ights into those that were successful on their second l ight and
those that were not. Interestingly, there was an inexplicable dif erence
between those that were successful on their second l ight and those that
failed to mate on the second l ight. h e ones that failed had more sper-
matozoa from the i rst l ight than those that succeeded. Overall, the
number of spermatozoa stored by queens from their i rst l ight, and
made a second l ight, successful or not, ranged from 0.287 million to
6.96 million sperm. Queens that made just one mating l ight and did
not attempt another had 1.7 to 7.2 million. h ese are tremendous ranges
that suggest only weak regulation of sperm intake of queens, at best. He
did not determine the number of times the queens mated, which is the
most important measure for all genetic-diversity hypotheses.
4.3 Pathogens and Parasites
Another plausible hypothesis for the evolution of polyandry in honey
bees proposes that polyandry evolved as a mechanism to resist patho-
gens and parasites. h ere are two variations on this hypothesis: the Red
Queen and the general-resistance hypotheses.
4.3.1 h e Red Queen
h e Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's
h rough the Looking Glass
said to
Alice as she was running and going nowhere, “Now here, you see, it
takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” h e Red
Queen hypothesis for evolutionary biology was originally coined by
Leigh Van Valen as a metaphor for evolutionary processes in constantly
changing environments. A population may constantly be evolving use-
ful traits to deal with some particular environment, including preda-
tors, pathogens, and parasites, but the environment itself is changing,
so the population is never able to evolve the optimum phenotype. It
keeps evolving toward something, but it never gets there. h is meta-
phor has been used to explain the evolution of polyandry in honey
bees. h e argument is similar to one used to explain the evolution of
sex as a mechanism to deal with parasites and pathogens.
