QUEEN‐WORKER CONFLICTS OVER MALE PRODUCTION AND SEX ALLOCATION IN A PRIMITIVELY EUSOCIAL WASP

Abstract In a colony headed by a single monandrous foundress, theories predict that conflicts between a queen and her workers over both sex ratio and male production should be intense. If production of males by workers is a function of colony size, this should affect sex ratios, but few studies have examined how queens and workers resolve both conflicts simultaneously. We conducted field and laboratory studies to test whether sex‐ratio variation can be explained by conflict over male production between queen and workers in the primitively eusocial wasp Polistes chinensis antennalis.

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