honeybees. The sperm limitation hypothesis for the evolution of polyandry postulates that polyandry – the behavior of a queen mating with multiple males – evolved partly as a way for the queen to obtain enough sperm to fertilize her eggs. A positive correlation has been found between polyandry and colony size across a variety of insects including ants, bees, and wasps. Polyandry also has the advantage of promoting genetic diversity in large colonies, which promotes disease resistance, as has been shown in other bee species that are usually monandrous. As such, since Trigona spinipes are not polyandrous, the mechanisms by which they promote genetic diversity are not clear. Worker–queen conflict The fact that Trigona spinipes colonies are headed by singly mated queens leads to conflict between workers and the queen over male production. Workers have the ability to lay unfertilized haploid eggs which will develop into males. Kin selection argues that it is in the workers favor to do this. This is because each worker is more related to her own sons (relatedness=0.5) than to the queen's sons (relatedness=0.25). In bee species such as honeybees, which are headed by polyandrous queens workers, workers are more related to the queen's sons (relatedness=0.25) than they are to each other's sons (relatedness = 0.125), so they consume each other's sons in a phenomenon known as worker policing. However, this is not the case in Trigona spinipes. There is ongoing conflict between queens and workers over egg laying with eggs constantly being consumed. This conflict may explain why Trigona spinipes, unlike honeybees, lay male and female eggs in identical cells. This makes it more difficult for workers to determine where the queen's male eggs are located. Human importance Trigona spinipes serves as major pollinators of tropical plants, it pollinates a broad variety of species across South America and is considered the ecological equivalent of the honey bee. However, Trigona spinipes'' has also be found to damage a variety of food crops while collecting nest materials. It has been shown to damage the fruits and flowers of rabbiteye blueberry plants, scarify the fruits of passion fruit, and damage broccoli floral stems. References spinipes Hymenoptera of South America Hymenoptera of Brazil Insects described in 1793