From Encarta:
” The altruism of honey bees has an entirely genetic explanation. Through a quirk of hymenopteran genetics, males have only one set of chromosomes. Animals normally have two sets, passing on only one when they mate; hence, they share half their genes with any offspring and the offspring have half their genes in common with one another. Because male Hymenoptera have a single set of chromosomes, however, all the daughters have those genes in common. Added to the genes they happen to share that came from their mother, the queen, most workers are three-fourths related to one another—more related than they would be to their own offspring. Genes that favor a “selfless” sterility that assists in rearing the next generation of sisters, then, should spread faster in the population than those programming the more conventional every-female-for-herself strategy. ”
How come the males share 3/4th of their genes with their each other? Aren’t the male bees supposed to share 100% of their genes with their siblings as all get only one set of gene from their mother?
@ Smeghead: Thanks for the clarification about the worker bees. Do you mean the male bees get all their genes from their mother and none from a male parent? For a man, that would be impossible as males have a Y sex gene in their chromosome while females have only two X genes. Is the case different with bees? If it is, could you please explain the phenomenon?
@ Smeghead: Looked in the wikipedia for drones. What I understand reading it is that the males get haploid number of genes from the queen, so it can’t have any different kind of chromosome from that of a female. However, it says, ” Since all the sperm cells produced by a particular drone are genetically identical, sisters are more closely related than full sisters of other animals where the sperm is not genetically identical. ” I did not get this particular thing. Are the sperm cells of a man not genetically identical? If not, how do they become different?
@ Smeghead: Meiosis answers my last question too. Thanks.
