Worker policing

Worker policing is found in honey bees and other hymenopterans including some species of bumblebees, ants and wasps.

Worker policing is a behavior seen in colonies of social hymenopterans (ants, bees, and wasps) whereby worker females eat or remove eggs that have been laid by other workers rather than those laid by a queen. Worker policing ensures that the offspring of the queen will predominate in the group. In certain species of bees, ants and wasps, workers or the queen may also act aggressively towards fertile workers. Worker policing has been suggested as a form of coercion to promote the evolution of altruistic behavior in eusocial insect societies.[1][dubious – discuss]

Proposed mechanisms for the recognition of worker-laid eggs or active reproductive workers include marker hydrocarbons on the surface of queen-laid eggs, cuticle hydrocarbons on reproductive workers, and recognition of nest-mates.[2][3][4] In rare cases, worker-laid eggs carry mimicked queen hydrocarbons and escape policing, a condition known as the anarchic syndrome.[5]

Not all forms of policing require the presence of a queen; it also occurs in a few species of ants which establish a dominance hierarchy of reproductive female workers, where top-ranking individuals reproduce.[6]

  1. ^ Ratnieks, Francis L.W.; Heikki Helanterä (October 2009). "The evolution of extreme altruism and inequality in insect societies". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 364 (1553): 3169–3179. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0129. PMC 2781879. PMID 19805425.
  2. ^ Endler, Annett; Jürgen Liebig; Bert Hölldobler (February 2006). "Queen fertility, egg marking and colony size in the ant Camponotus floridanus". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 59 (4): 490–499. doi:10.1007/s00265-005-0073-0. S2CID 22084023.
  3. ^ Hartmann, Anne; Patrizia D'Ettorre; Graeme R. Jones; Jürgen Heinze (June 2005). "Fertility signaling—the proximate mechanism of worker policing in a clonal ant". Naturwissenschaften. 92 (6): 282–286. Bibcode:2005NW.....92..282H. doi:10.1007/s00114-005-0625-1. PMID 15770464. S2CID 11123443.
  4. ^ Helanterä, Heikki; Liselotte Sundström (June 2007). "Worker policing and nest mate recognition in the ant Formica fusca". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 61 (8): 1143–1149. doi:10.1007/s00265-006-0327-5. S2CID 9920557.
  5. ^ Oldroyd, Benjamin P.; Katherine E Osborne (July 1999). "The evolution of worker sterility in honeybees: the genetic basis of failure of worker policing". Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 266 (1426): 1335–1339. doi:10.1098/rspb.1999.0784. PMC 1690071.
  6. ^ Stroeymeyt, Nathalie; Elisabeth Brunner; Jürgen Heinze (July 2007). ""Selfish worker policing" controls reproduction in a Temnothorax ant". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 61 (9): 1449–1457. doi:10.1007/s00265-007-0377-3. S2CID 3191624.