One could also ask, "What good does it do for an insect to taste bad to birds? By the time the insect gets 'tasted' it's already dead."
Very simply, animals learn to avoid such insects. The same simple explanation - absent much of any concept of selfish or altruistic behavior - probably applies to bees as well, regardless of their colony structure. Once an animal is stung by a bee, it learns to avoid bees, which reduces predatory pressure on all bees (including bee mimic species).
The other primary role of the stinger is in defense of the hive, i.e. colony survival. That's a more direct group selection concept, as if the queen and some drones survive an attack on the colony, new generations can be bred, so an aggressive pheromone-trigger response by workers is likely.
Furthermore, one must always consider in evolution the role of accident and misfortune. For example, walking upright in humans is widely considered to have been a beneficial evolutionary development, as humans were able to spread onto the plains and were no longer limited to living in forests. So is the development of a large brain. However, together those factors make childbirth more difficult for human females relative to other mammals. This wasn't a desirable outcome, more of a side effect. Bee stingers lodging in some of their targets may be a similar issue - i.e. an accident of evolution, not something chosen by selection.
>Very simply, animals learn to avoid such insects. The same simple explanation - absent much of any concept of selfish or altruistic behavior - probably applies to bees as well, regardless of their colony structure. Once an animal is stung by a bee, it learns to avoid bees, which reduces predatory pressure on all bees (including bee mimic species).
In a thread full of Not Even Wrong answers, I would say this is at least the right kind of answer. It stands to reason, I think, that barbed stinger + tear-off of stinger really does serve the purpose of inflicting maximal pain plus pheromone signalling. It's a bit unsatisfying as an answer however, as it would stand to reason that the same can be achieved without necessarily needing to trigger the death of the bee itself.
Regarding it being an accident of evolution, I would say I find it implausible that this one is accidental - a barbed stinger is specific and seemingly tailored (in a manner of speaking, not literally) toward a tear-off. With the example of humans having large brains which make childbirth difficult, by contrast, it's easy to see it as an unintended downstream consequence.
> However, together those factors make childbirth more difficult for human females relative to other mammals. This wasn't a desirable outcome, more of a side effect.
This is a pop science concept from the 60s known as the obstetrical dilemma and is not well-supported by the evidence we have.
> All of this shows how human birthing is much more difficult and painful than that of large apes.
Sounds logical and commonly beleived, however I had trouble finding any papers to actually support that humans have more maternal deaths.
A 2018 paper[1] says “The observations by Yeligulashvili, representing cumulative data on over 200 births spanning a 16 year period in the Sukhumi nursery, remain one of the largest reports documenting labor in NHP [non-human-primates]”. The paper about Baboons also said “there were 1021 cesarean deliveries, 5195 vaginal deliveries”, which either implies that the veterinarians are very often worried about the survival of the Baboon mother, or that the veterinarians perform cesarean deliveries for other reasons (like humans do).
There are strong evolutionary pressures against a mother’s death during parturition, which leaves one wondering what the other evolutionary compromises are that result in maternal death. The survival of a baby mostly trumps the needs of a mother for passing on genes (a gene where a child lives to breed has a very strong selection pressure), so that probably is one major reason.
If human societies have brought up maternal death orphans for many many generations, then maternal deaths should become more common?
> The survival of a baby mostly trumps the needs of a mother for passing on genes (a gene where a child lives to breed has a very strong selection pressure), so that probably is one major reason.
This is generally not true for species that take a long time to reach reproductive maturity, and more so if they evolve to become physically underdeveloped at birth. A (proven) fertile human female is reproductively much more valuable than a newborn.
Yeah, on second thoughts you are right because I hadn’t thought about what happens to the mothers that lack the gene. If there are genes that kill mothers, the child has the chance to pass on the gene, which is a strong selection pressure for the child. However meanwhile mothers without that gene will have more babies, so the selection pressure is mostly whether the mother has the gene or not, because mothers without the gene will have more descendants. It’s difficult to think through realistic examples, and probabilities.
Other things to consider include that if the child’s genes kill the mother they generally do this by causing the child to fail to exit the mother, which also kills the child. The exception to this would mostly be genes that result in the mother’s death from blood loss, after the child had exited, so related to placental issues/placement. But for this to succeed for the child it also assumes someone else would care for the child as well as the mother would have, which is unlikely at best.
There is a very large difference between was and is, here. Human childbirth at this point is almost certainly a result of positive selection, not an “evolutionary accident.”
A “difficult birth process” has been played up in popular media. In the vast majority of cases, childbirth successfully exits a child, and also preserves the mother. There is some evidence that the mechanics of this process were better before early Western medicine’s gynecological “expertise”.
The whole thing stems from inaccurate, sexist attempts from the 20th century to explain why women are generally athletically not as capable as men.
Very simply, animals learn to avoid such insects. The same simple explanation - absent much of any concept of selfish or altruistic behavior - probably applies to bees as well, regardless of their colony structure. Once an animal is stung by a bee, it learns to avoid bees, which reduces predatory pressure on all bees (including bee mimic species).
The other primary role of the stinger is in defense of the hive, i.e. colony survival. That's a more direct group selection concept, as if the queen and some drones survive an attack on the colony, new generations can be bred, so an aggressive pheromone-trigger response by workers is likely.
Furthermore, one must always consider in evolution the role of accident and misfortune. For example, walking upright in humans is widely considered to have been a beneficial evolutionary development, as humans were able to spread onto the plains and were no longer limited to living in forests. So is the development of a large brain. However, together those factors make childbirth more difficult for human females relative to other mammals. This wasn't a desirable outcome, more of a side effect. Bee stingers lodging in some of their targets may be a similar issue - i.e. an accident of evolution, not something chosen by selection.