Some Consequences of Fisher's Sex Ratio Principle for Social Hymenoptera that Reproduce by Colony Fission

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Abstract
If Trivers and Hare''s analysis of intracolony conflicts is applied to the social hymenoptera that reproduce by colony fission, a possible conflict could arise among the workers over who stays with the parental queen and who goes with the daughter queen. Trivers and Hare analyzed intracolony conflicts primarily from the kin selectionist viewpoint. Here the evolution of the fission mode of reproduction is analyzed from the kin selectionist and parental manipulationist viewpoint. Based on a simple population model, applicable to many fission reproducing insects, it was determined that for the evolution of fission reproduction via kin selection, necessary conditions imply certain constraints on the demographic parameters. In principle, these constraints are measurable and suggest an experimental means for distinguishing between the kin selectionist and parental manipulationist explanations for fission reproduction evolution among social hymenoptera.