Reproductive conflicts in Australian stingless bees

Social insects have played a central role in the development of ideas about the evolution of behaviour. Perhaps the most interesting issue, first recognised by Darwin, is the problem of worker sterility. An important conceptual advance in this regard was the worker policing hypothesis. This hypothesis seeks to explain maintenance of worker sterility in multiple-mating haplo-diploid social insects such as honey bees. A major prediction of the hypothesis is that worker policing may occur in multiple mating species, but should not occur in single mating species. This project aims to 1) test the worker policing hypothesis across a wide variety of eusocial species, that have a variety of mating systems and 2) identify alternative mechanisms by which single mating Australian stingless bees maintain social cohesion despite worker oviposition.

Microsatellite markers are being developed that should prove useful in this study. It is aimed to use these to determine whether queens of particular stingless bee species mate once (monandry), or more than once (polyandry), and whether males arise from eggs laid by the queen or by workers.

This project has ARC funding until 2001.