Controversy
The haplodiploidy hypothesis for the evolution of eusociality in hymenoptera is often given as a clear example of kin selection.
Since full hymenopteran sisters share more genes than a parent shares with its offspring, it follows that helping to rear sisters should be favored over having children as an evolutionary strategy. However, this argument neglects that eusocial workers help raise their brothers in addition to their sisters, which, given the typical sex ratio of 1:1, results in raising siblings with an average relatedness coefficient of 1/2, which is no better than that of young. Ratios can be even lower in colonies where the queen has mated with multiple males, which is common in some species. This, combined with the discovery of multiple diploid eusocial organisms and at least one haplodiploid eusocial species with a male nonreproductive caste, has been referred to by one of the founding figures of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson, as the "collapse of the haplodiploid hypothesis". However, not all researchers believe the hypothesis has been disproven, and evidence continues to be collected on both sides. Statistical analysis suggests that in each of the independent evolutions of eusociality, queens mated with only one male, which suggests having highly related offspring was important. Furthermore, often the female bees give more food to the females than to the males, and in times of dearth will even kill the males.
Read more about this topic: Haplodiploid Sex-determination System
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