QUEEN NUMBER IN COLONIES OF SOCIAL HYMENOPTERA AS A KIN-SELECTED ADAPTATION

Using a series of kin-selection models, I examine factors that favor multiple egg-laying queens (polygyny) in eusocial Hymenoptera colonies. One result is that there is a theoretical conflict of interest between the founding queens and their daughter workers over how many and which individuals should be the extra reproductives. Both castes should prefer their full sisters. Therefore, primary polygyny (multiple related foundresses) may favor queens while secondary polygyny (related queens added to mature colonies) may favor workers. Polygyny, itself, was found to be favored by high colony survivorship and low probability of queens contributing eggs to successive broods. Polygyne colonies, however, did not need to produce more offspring per brood to be selectively favored; they could be half as productive per brood as monogyne ones and still have higher lifetime fitness under some conditions. For reproductive data from eight ant species with both monogyne and polygyne colonies, the model generates results that are consistent with a kin-selection explanation of polygyny in all of them. It is proposed that queen number is an ecologically flexible trait that is influenced by a broad set of factors but is not necessarily linked to specific habitat types. Furthermore, neither polygyny nor monogyny may be reliably considered as the primitive or ancestral Hymenopteran social system. The optimal queen number within a species may evolutionarily increase or decrease, depending on the direction of environmental change.