2025/07/08 by Chedhawat Chokechaipaisarn, Andy Gardner · 2 voices
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #Plant and animal studies
paper · doi:10.1093/jeb/voaf088
Unmated females in haplodiploid populations may enjoy reproductive success but with the constraint that all their offspring-developing from unfertilised eggs-are male. The presence of such females, constrained to produce only male offspring, is expected to lead to a corresponding female bias being favoured among the offspring of unconstrained females. Godfray (J Evol Biol 3, 3-17) derived a mathematical expression for the unbeatable sex allocation strategy for unconstrained females in the context of local mate competition in 2-foundress patches, and concluded that there is negligible impact of the presence of constrained females on the unbeatable sex allocation of unconstrained females. However, Godfray's result assumes diploid-rather than haplodiploid-genetics and his derivation contains a mathematical error. We correct Godfray's error and extend his model to incorporate haplodiploid genetics. This results in a more substantial impact of constrained females on the sex allocation behaviour of unconstrained females under local mate competition.