| Budget Amount *help |
¥5,590,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,290,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
|
|---|
| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
In polygynous wasps, several or many queens reproduce in a colony, thus decreasing the relatedness of workers to brood. Some ecological benefits of polygyny have been suggested, such as increased parasite resistance or increased task performance of workers. In this study, those two hypotheses were examined in the swarm-founding epiponine wasp Polybia paulista. Polymorphic microsatellite DNA markers showed strong genotypic differences between parasitized and non-parasitized workers. The markers also showed that statistically significant bias in genotypic frequencies among forager types. The microsatellite marker biases suggest that division of labor and increased parasite resistance among workers includes a genetic component in Polybia paulista. Colony-level selection on variation in division of labor and parasite resistance is a possible factor favoring the evolutionary maintenance of high genotypic variability (though low relatedness) in epiponine wasp colonies.
|
