Stable eusociality via maternal manipulation when resistance is costless

In many eusocial species, queens use pheromones to influence offspring to express worker phenotypes. While evidence suggests that queen pheromones are honest signals of the queen's reproductive health, here I show that queen's honest signaling can result from ancestral maternal manipulation. I develop a mathematical model to study the coevolution of maternal manipulation, offspring resistance to manipulation, and maternal resource allocation. I assume that (1) maternal manipulation causes offspring to be workers against offspring's interests; (2) offspring can resist at no direct cost, as is thought to be the case with pheromonal manipulation; and (3) the mother chooses how much resource to allocate to fertility andmaternal care. In the coevolution of these traits, I find that maternal care decreases, thereby increasing the benefit that offspring obtain from help, which in the long run eliminates selection for resistance. Consequently, ancestral maternal manipulation yields stable eusoc...