Worker policing is found in honey bees and other hymenopterans including some species of bumblebees, ants and wasps.
Worker policing is a behavior seen in colonies of social hymenopterans (ants, bees, and wasps) whereby worker females eat or remove eggs that have been laid by other workers rather than those laid by a queen. Worker policing ensures that the offspring of the queen will predominate in the group. In certain species of bees, ants and wasps, workers or the queen may also act aggressively towards fertile workers. Worker policing has been suggested as a form of coercion to promote the evolution of altruistic behavior in eusocial insect societies.[1][dubious – discuss]
Proposed mechanisms for the recognition of worker-laid eggs or active reproductive workers include marker hydrocarbons on the surface of queen-laid eggs, cuticle hydrocarbons on reproductive workers, and recognition of nest-mates.[2][3][4] In rare cases, worker-laid eggs carry mimicked queen hydrocarbons and escape policing, a condition known as the anarchic syndrome.[5]
Not all forms of policing require the presence of a queen; it also occurs in a few species of ants which establish a dominance hierarchy of reproductive female workers, where top-ranking individuals reproduce.[6]
^Ratnieks, Francis L.W.; Heikki Helanterä (October 2009). "The evolution of extreme altruism and inequality in insect societies". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 364 (1553): 3169–3179. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0129. PMC 2781879. PMID 19805425.
^Endler, Annett; Jürgen Liebig; Bert Hölldobler (February 2006). "Queen fertility, egg marking and colony size in the ant Camponotus floridanus". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 59 (4): 490–499. doi:10.1007/s00265-005-0073-0. S2CID 22084023.
^Hartmann, Anne; Patrizia D'Ettorre; Graeme R. Jones; Jürgen Heinze (June 2005). "Fertility signaling—the proximate mechanism of worker policing in a clonal ant". Naturwissenschaften. 92 (6): 282–286. Bibcode:2005NW.....92..282H. doi:10.1007/s00114-005-0625-1. PMID 15770464. S2CID 11123443.
^Helanterä, Heikki; Liselotte Sundström (June 2007). "Worker policing and nest mate recognition in the ant Formica fusca". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 61 (8): 1143–1149. doi:10.1007/s00265-006-0327-5. S2CID 9920557.
^Oldroyd, Benjamin P.; Katherine E Osborne (July 1999). "The evolution of worker sterility in honeybees: the genetic basis of failure of worker policing". Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 266 (1426): 1335–1339. doi:10.1098/rspb.1999.0784. PMC 1690071.
^Stroeymeyt, Nathalie; Elisabeth Brunner; Jürgen Heinze (July 2007). ""Selfish worker policing" controls reproduction in a Temnothorax ant". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 61 (9): 1449–1457. doi:10.1007/s00265-007-0377-3. S2CID 3191624.
Workerpolicing is a behavior seen in colonies of social hymenopterans (ants, bees, and wasps) whereby worker females eat or remove eggs that have been...
workers, only 0.44 percent of adult males were workers' sons. The numbers indicate the efficiency with which workerpolicing is carried out. Policing...
target worker-laid eggs over queen-laid eggs. Two forms that are probably most influential of policing are workerpolicing and selfish policing. Despite...
fibers. Unlike most other vespines, reproductive suppression involves workerpolicing instead of queen pheromone control, as was previously thought. This...
sons of the queen and those of the other workers would decrease. The benefit of policing is negated, and policing is less favored. Experiments confirming...
out workerpolicing and have a haplodiploid sex-determination system; this results in a high level of relatedness within the colony. The workers will...
species, queens destroy up to 70% of worker-laid eggs and are aided by workers in a process known as workerpolicing. P. chinensis is a member of the cosmopolitan...
worker policing. Workerpolicing is thus a result of genetic conflicts of interest among workers used non-exclusively by honeybees and wasps. With worker policing...
(not a worker-laid egg). This shows us that workerpolicing does indeed work within populations of these bees. In these instances, workerpolicing occurs...
interesting fact about Vespula rufa is that the queen policing occurs in the species, and that workerpolicing occurs at much lower rates than other species in...
period workerpolicing is usually absent, in certain groups of bees it continues. According to the strategy of kin selection, workerpolicing is not favored...
of eggs by workers and workers have an incentive to suppress other workers from producing eggs. This phenomenon is known as "workerpolicing". In Costa...
Vespula level generalization regarding workerpolicing. Worker ovary activation, worker laying, and overt queen-worker aggressions have been cited in members...
with queen and worker castes. Bombus pratorum queens use aggressive behavior rather than pheromones to maintain dominance over the workers. The queen is...
wasps, worker females will remove eggs laid by other workers due to increased relatedness to direct siblings, a phenomenon known as workerpolicing. Another...
onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, police officers and members of the general public in acts...
Community policing or community-oriented policing (COP) is a strategy of policing that focuses on developing relationships with community members. It...
loss of a queen, workers will first try to rear a new queen using royal jelly. If this fails, workerpolicing will decrease and workers will activate their...
Workerpolicing leads to nearly all eggs laid by workers being eaten. Thus, the queen is usually the mother of all of the first males laid. Workers eventually...
behavioral patterns of this wasp species, especially the behavior of workerpolicing. Another unique characteristic of this wasp is that it is generally...
by destroying worker-laid eggs, or by showing aggression towards workers attempting to lay eggs through workerpolicing. Adult worker bees predominantly...
2021-01-20. Helanterä, Heikki; Ratnieks, Francis L.W. (2019). "Worker Conflict and WorkerPolicing". Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior. Elsevier. pp. 743–753...
civil policing. Police forces are usually public sector services, funded through taxes. Law enforcement is only part of policing activity. Policing has...
inclined to care for the queen’s sons than to a son of another worker. Workerpolicing effectively preserves the collective interests of the colony by...
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