10.5061/DRYAD.GT8B5
Davies, Nicholas G.
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Gardner, Andy
University of St Andrews
Data from: Monogamy promotes altruistic sterility in insect societies
Dryad
dataset
2018
2018-04-18T16:28:31Z
2018-04-18T16:28:31Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172190
143994642 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Monogamy is associated with sibling-directed altruism in multiple animal
taxa, including insects, birds, and mammals. Inclusive-fitness theory
readily explains this pattern by identifying high relatedness as a
promoter of altruism. In keeping with this prediction, monogamy should
promote the evolution of voluntary sterility in insect societies if
sterile workers make for better helpers. However, a recent mathematical
population-genetics analysis failed to identify a consistent effect of
monogamy on voluntary worker sterility. Here, we revisit that analysis.
First, we relax genetic assumptions, considering not only alleles of
extreme effect—encoding either no sterility or complete sterility—but also
alleles with intermediate effects on worker sterility. Second, we broaden
the stability analysis—which focused on the invasibility of populations
where either all workers are fully-sterile or all workers are
fully-reproductive—to identify where intermediate pure or mixed
evolutionarily-stable states may occur. Third, we consider a broader range
of demographically-explicit ecological scenarios relevant to altruistic
worker non-reproduction and to the evolution of eusociality more
generally. We find that, in the absence of genetic constraints, monogamy
always promotes altruistic worker sterility and may inhibit spiteful
worker sterility. Our extended analysis demonstrates that an exact
population-genetics approach strongly supports the prediction of
inclusive-fitness theory that monogamy promotes sib-directed altruism in
social insects.
Worker sterility - Code and dataWorker sterility - Code and data