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As I said, thinking of things at this level is usually good enough -don't think me an extremist. Its just that nature is a funny thing, and there end up being exceptions to rules all over the place if you aren't careful.
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And the fitness of the queen would be low given that most offspring are the sterile drones and only some potential kings and queens, probably less than 0.1 by the above metric, yet they are able to expand and fill new areas easily. If you count the hive ability to produce new hives you get a different picture.
Odd - that unfit entities can spread so well
Sorry to introduce even moré terms here, but when you are discussing the reproductive behavior of the social insects, you are talking about eusociality, a kind of cooperation called kin altruism. To discuss it in an evolutionary context requires bringing in Hamilton’s concept of
inclusive fitness. In short, a gene (or genotype) can increase its own fitness by influencing behavior that benefits copies of that gene in other organisms. That is, by behaving altruistically toward kin (which share more copies of genes in common than non-kin) an organism can still increase the fitness of the genes it carries, even if it does so at its own risk, or if it forgoes reproduction.
A
Edited by Allopatrik, : No reason given.
Natural Selection is not Evolution-- R.A. Fisher
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