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Summary: six unlinked microsatellite loci (B10, B11, B96, B118, B121 and B124)10,13,30
using an
Applied Biosystems 377 sequencer13
. Loci had a mean of 9.5 alleles per locus (range 318)
and a mean heterozygosity of 0.65. To prevent confusion with males from the external
environment entering nest boxes, we only genotyped males that were unequivocally newly
eclosed individuals (`callows'). To ensure accuracy of parentage attributions, all colony
queens and (at diagnostic loci) putative worker-produced males were genotyped twice. We
reconstructed each colony's mating type from genotypes of colony queens, their female
offspring and their mates' sperm (Table 1). As expected10,11
, all female offspring had
genotypes consistent with single queen mating. No inbreeding or diploid males were
detected. Grouping the 32 colony queens into full sisterhoods (with COLONY20
)
suggested that they originated from at least 25 different colonies (18 providing 1 queen and
7 providing 2 queens each), and hence, given the lack of population viscosity in
B. terrestris20
, that colonies were, on average, unrelated.
Identification of worker-produced males
Given that only males produced by a queen's worker offspring can inherit an allele from
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