Sex…Only If Really Necessary in a Feminine Monarchy

Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2004) Sex…Only If Really Necessary in a Feminine Monarchy. In: Science, 306 (5702). pp. 1694-1695.

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Abstract

The honey bee society was famously described as The Feminine Monarchy by the cleric Charles Butler in 1634. Honey bees and their relatives—including all hymenopteran societies—qualify for this label because their colonies are headed by one or a small number of fertile queens. These queens produce a large number of sterile or nearly sterile daughter workers and, later, with their assistance, produce a smaller number of fertile sons and daughter queens (1). The complex and diverse life cycles and social organization of the feminine monarchies are matched by their equally complex and diverse strategies for sexual and asexual reproduction (2). On page 1780 of this issue, Pearcy et al. (3) uncover a new dimension in the complexity of hymenopteran reproduction

Item Type:	Editorials/Short Communications
Publication:	Science
Publisher:	American Association for the Advancement of Science
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited:	25 Aug 2008
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:33
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/9345

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