title: Evolution of worker policing.
abstract: Workers in insect societies are sometimes observed to kill male eggs of other workers, a phenomenon known as worker policing. We perform a mathematical analysis of the evolutionary dynamics of policing. We investigate the selective forces behind policing for both dominant and recessive mutations for different numbers of matings of the queen. The traditional, relatedness-based argument suggests that policing evolves if the queen mates with more than two males, but does not evolve if the queen mates with a single male. We derive precise conditions for the invasion and stability of policing alleles. We find that the relatedness-based argument is not robust with respect to small changes in colony efficiency caused by policing. We also calculate evolutionarily singular strategies and determine when they are evolutionarily stable. We use a population genetics approach that applies to dominant or recessive mutations of any effect size.
authors.affiliation: Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Jason W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Olejarz
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Emmanuel College, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.affiliation: Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Carl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Veller
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecological Sciences and Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India; Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi 110 002, India.
authors.forename: Raghavendra
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gadagkar
authors.affiliation: Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Electronic address: martin_nowak@harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Martin A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Nowak
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D005808:Genes, Recessive / Q000235:genetics; D056084:Genetic Fitness; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D007313:Insecta / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted; D010063:Ovum / Q000502:physiology; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal
keywords: Evolutionary dynamics; Models/simulations; Natural selection; Sociobiology