TY - JOUR
T1 - A solution to a sex ratio puzzle in Melittobia wasps
AU - Abe, Jun
AU - Iritani, Ryosuke
AU - Tsuchida, Koji
AU - Kamimura, Yoshitaka
AU - West, Stuart A.
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank M. Abe and R. Abe for field assistance and M. Ichinokawa for advice on statistical analyses. We thank three anonymous referees for their valuable comments on the manuscript. Funding was provided by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grant-in-aid for scientific research (JSPS KAKENHI Grant 17K07574) to J.A.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/5/18
Y1 - 2021/5/18
N2 - The puzzling sex ratio behavior of Melittobia wasps has long posed one of the greatest questions in the field of sex allocation. Laboratory experiments have found that, in contrast to the predictions of theory and the behavior of numerous other organisms, Melittobia females do not produce fewer female-biased offspring sex ratios when more females lay eggs on a patch. We solve this puzzle by showing that, in nature, females of Melittobia australica have a sophisticated sex ratio behavior, in which their strategy also depends on whether they have dispersed from the patch where they emerged. When females have not dispersed, they lay eggs with close relatives, which keeps local mate competition high even with multiple females, and therefore, they are selected to produce consistently female-biased sex ratios. Laboratory experimentsmimic these conditions. In contrast, when females disperse, they interact with nonrelatives, and thus adjust their sex ratio depending on the number of females laying eggs. Consequently, females appear to use dispersal status as an indirect cue of relatedness and whether they should adjust their sex ratio in response to the number of females laying eggs on the patch.
AB - The puzzling sex ratio behavior of Melittobia wasps has long posed one of the greatest questions in the field of sex allocation. Laboratory experiments have found that, in contrast to the predictions of theory and the behavior of numerous other organisms, Melittobia females do not produce fewer female-biased offspring sex ratios when more females lay eggs on a patch. We solve this puzzle by showing that, in nature, females of Melittobia australica have a sophisticated sex ratio behavior, in which their strategy also depends on whether they have dispersed from the patch where they emerged. When females have not dispersed, they lay eggs with close relatives, which keeps local mate competition high even with multiple females, and therefore, they are selected to produce consistently female-biased sex ratios. Laboratory experimentsmimic these conditions. In contrast, when females disperse, they interact with nonrelatives, and thus adjust their sex ratio depending on the number of females laying eggs. Consequently, females appear to use dispersal status as an indirect cue of relatedness and whether they should adjust their sex ratio in response to the number of females laying eggs on the patch.
KW - Dispersal
KW - Kin selection
KW - Local mate competition
KW - Relatedness
KW - Sex allocation
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2024656118
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2024656118
M3 - Article
C2 - 33972440
AN - SCOPUS:85105709681
VL - 118
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 20
M1 - e2024656118
ER -