Feb.
3, 2013 — Being able to choose the sex of their babies may be the key to
the complex societies built by ants, bees, and wasps, according to Oxford
University scientists.
The
researchers calculated the evolutionary costs and benefits to insect mothers of
choosing the sex of their offspring and showed that, if females help out with
bringing up babies, then mothers prefer to have daughters rather than sons --
leading to a large workforce of female helpers.
Their
findings could also help to explain why termites, alone among social insects,
have complex societies with a roughly equal balance of males and females:
because in termite society both males and females help to raise offspring.
A
report of the research is published in the March issue of the journal The American Naturalist.
'In
social ants, bees, and wasps, mothers can decide the sex of their offspring by
controlling which of their eggs get fertilized by sperm,' said Dr Andy Gardner
of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, an author of the report.
'Fertilized eggs develop as daughters, and unfertilized eggs develop as sons.
It's the daughters who do all the work in the colony, so this special ability
means that the mother can raise a female workforce without wasting resources on
relatively useless males.'
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