RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sex allocation conflict and sexual selection throughout the lifespan of eusocial colonies
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 454512
DO 10.1101/454512
A1 Piret Avila
A1 Lutz Fromhage
A1 Mauricio González-Forero
A1 Laurent Lehmann
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/11/06/454512.abstract
AB Models of sex allocation conflict are central to evolutionary biology but have mostly assumed static decisions, where resource allocation strategies are constant over colony lifespan. Here, we develop a model to study how the evolution on dynamic resource allocation strategies is affected by the queen-worker conflict in annual eusocial insects. We demonstrate that the time of dispersal of sexuals affects the sex allocation ratio through sexual selection on males. Furthermore, our model provides three predictions that depart from established results of classic static allocation models. First, we find that the queen wins the sex allocation conflict, while the workers determine the maximum colony size and colony productivity. Second, male-biased sex allocation and protandry evolve if sexuals disperse directly after eclosion. Third, when workers are more related to new queens, then the proportional investment into queens is expected to be lower, which results from the interacting effect of sexual selection (selecting for protandry) and sex allocation conflict (selecting for earlier switch to producing sexuals). Overall, we find that colony ontogeny crucially affects the outcome of sex-allocation conflict because of the evolution of distinct colony growth phases, which decouples how queens and workers affect allocation decisions and can result in asymmetric control.