In honey bee colonies, the queen produces sterile offspring that protect the nest and forage for food. Assess how this altruistic behavior may have arisen through natural selection.
Altruistic behavior, such as that seen in honey bee colonies, may have arisen through natural selection based on the principle of inclusive fitness. Inclusive fitness refers to how the survival and reproduction of an individual's relatives contribute to their own genetic success. This theory was developed by W.D. Hamilton in the 1960s and is known as kin selection.
In honey bee colonies, the queen produces sterile offspring called worker bees that protect the nest and forage for food. While these worker bees do not reproduce, they share a high proportion of their genes with their queen mother and their siblings. By helping their mother (the queen) to reproduce and rear more offspring, the workers are ensuring that their genetic material is passed on, even if indirectly, through their relatives.
In natural selection, the key driver is the ability of an individual to pass their genes on to the next generation. By supporting the survival and reproduction of their relatives, worker bees are ensuring the continuation of their shared genetic material. This cooperative behavior enhances the overall reproductive success of the colony, thereby increasing the likelihood of its genes being passed on to future generations.
Through generations, colonies that had workers that showed higher levels of altruistic behavior and cooperated more effectively would have been more successful in terms of reproduction and resource acquisition. As a result, the genes that coded for this altruistic behavior would have been passed on to subsequent generations, leading to the evolution of this trait in honey bees.
Furthermore, honey bees have a haplodiploid reproductive system, which means that females are diploid (having two sets of chromosomes) and develop from fertilized eggs, whereas males are haploid (having one set of chromosomes) and develop from unfertilized eggs. This system creates a unique genetic relatedness structure within the colony, with workers being more closely related to their sisters (with whom they share 75% of their genes) than to their own potential offspring (with whom they would share only 50% of their genes). This relatedness structure promotes and reinforces the evolution of altruistic behavior among worker bees, as they contribute more to their own genetic success by helping their sisters rather than reproducing themselves.
Overall, the altruistic behavior of worker bees in honey bee colonies may have arisen through natural selection by increasing the inclusive fitness of individuals involved. By supporting the queen and their siblings, workers can ensure the continuation of their shared genetic material, thereby contributing to the overall reproductive success of the colony. Through generations, this cooperative and altruistic behavior would have been favored by natural selection, leading to the evolution of this trait in honey bees.