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 cerana Fabr.) 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. Populations that show significant differentiation in the number of matings may be studied 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.

中文翻译：

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泰国东部蜜蜂一妻多夫的地理变异


高级社会性昆虫中极端一妻多夫的反复进化是罕见的，其解释引起了极大的关注。然而，大多数报道的交配数量估计都是来自有限的抽样。社会性昆虫交配行为的时间和地理变化尚未得到充分研究。泰国三个种群的 18 只东方蜜蜂 (Apis cerana Fabr.) 蜂王的工蜂后代通过五个微卫星标记进行了基因分型，以测试三个不同生态系统中交配行为的种群差异。从北部的季节性环境到南部的热带种群，交配数量减少，并且在热带岛屿种群中交配数量最低。我们的研究证实了早期的发现，即社会性昆虫的交配行为显示出生物地理差异，并强调需要来自多个种群的数据来对特定物种的交配数量进行可靠的估计。可以对交配次数表现出显着差异的种群进行研究，以有效区分为解释蜜蜂和其他高级社会性昆虫的一妻多夫进化而提出的不同假设。