title: Geographic variation in polyandry of the Eastern Honey Bee,Apis cerana, in Thailand.
abstract: The repeated evolution of extreme polyandry in advanced social insects is exceptional and its explanation has attracted significant attention. However, most reported estimates of the number of matings are derived from limited sampling. Temporal and geographic variation in mating behavior of social insects has not been sufficiently studied. Worker offspring of 18 Eastern Honey Bee (Apis ceranaFabr.) queens from three populations across Thailand were genotyped at five microsatellite markers to test for population differences of mating behavior across three different ecosystems. The number of matings decreased from a northern, more seasonal environment to a southern tropical population and was lowest in a tropical island population. Our study confirms earlier findings that social insect mating behavior shows biogeographic variation and highlights that data from several populations are needed for reliable species-specific estimates of the number of matings. Detailed studies of populations that show significant differentiation in the number of matings may be able to discriminate effectively among the different hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the evolution of polyandry in honey bees and other advanced social insects.
authors: Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 312 McIver Street, Greensboro, NC, USA.
authors: D S
authors: DS
authors: DeFelice
authors: Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 312 McIver Street, Greensboro, NC, USA.
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Ross
authors: Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, 100 Derieux Place, Raleigh, NC, USA.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Simone-Finstrom
authors: Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, 10330 Bangkok, Thailand.
authors: N
authors: N
authors: Warrit
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.
authors: D R
authors: DR
authors: Smith
authors: Department of Horticulture, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Burgett
authors: Department of Entomology, Chiang Mai University, 239 Huaykaew Road, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Sukumalanand
authors: Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 312 McIver Street, Greensboro, NC, USA.
authors: O
authors: O
authors: Rueppell
keywords: Apis cerana; Behavioral ecology; Biogeographic variation; Division of labor; Honeybees; Polyandry; Social evolution