Journal articles: 'Ant queens'

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Oliveira, Ricardo Caliari, Jonas Warson, David Sillam-Dussès, Beatriz Herrera-Malaver, Kevin Verstrepen, Jocelyn G. Millar, and Tom Wenseleers. "Identification of a queen pheromone mediating the rearing of adult sexuals in the pharaoh ant Monomorium pharaonis." Biology Letters 16, no. 8 (August 2020): 20200348. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0348.

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The division of labour between reproductive queens and mostly sterile workers is among the defining characteristics of social insects. Queen-produced chemical signals advertising her presence and fertility status, i.e. queen pheromones, are normally used to assert the queen's reproductive dominance in the colony. Most queen pheromones identified to date are chemicals that stop the daughter workers from reproducing. Nevertheless, it has long been suggested that queen pheromones could also regulate reproduction in different ways. In some multiple-queen ants with obligately sterile workers, for example—such as fire ants and pharaoh ants—queen pheromones are thought to regulate reproduction by inhibiting the rearing of new sexuals. Here, we identify the first such queen pheromone in the pharaoh ant Monomorium pharaonis and demonstrate its mode of action via bioassays with the pure biosynthesized compound. In particular, we show that the monocyclic diterpene neocembrene, which in different Monomorium species is produced solely by fertile, egg-laying queens, strongly inhibits the rearing of new sexuals (queens and males) and also exerts a weakly attractive ‘queen retinue’ effect on the workers. This is the first time that a queen pheromone with such a dual function has been identified in a social insect species with obligately sterile workers.

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Castañeda, Irene, Elsa Bonnaud, Franck Courchamp, and Gloria Luque. "Influence of the Number of Queens on Nest Establishment: Native and Invasive Ant Species." Animals 11, no. 3 (February 24, 2021): 591. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani11030591.

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As a critical stage in the life cycle of ant colonies, nest establishment depends on external and internal factors. This study investigates the effect of the number of queens on queen and worker behavior during nest establishment in invasive Argentine ants (Linepitema humile) and native Mediterranean Tapinoma nigerrimum. We set up experimental colonies with the same number of workers but with one or six queens. At different time points, we recorded the positions of queens and workers inside and outside the nest. Our results highlight the influence of the number of queens on the position of queens and workers with between-species differences. Queens of both species entered the nests more quickly when there were six queens. During nest establishment, more workers were inside nests with six queens for both species, with this effect being greater for T. nigerrimum. Once nests were established, fewer workers of both species were engaged in nest maintenance and feeding in nests with six queens; T. nigerrimum had fewer workers engaged in patrolling. These results suggest that the number of queens is a key factor driving queen and worker behavior during and after nest establishment with different species responses.

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Porter, Sanford D. "Origins of New Queens in Polygyne Red Imported Fire Ant Colonies (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)." Journal of Entomological Science 26, no. 4 (October 1, 1991): 474–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.18474/0749-8004-26.4.474.

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Polygyne colonies of the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, accepted newly mated queens both from their own colony and unrelated colonies. Only a small fraction of the marked winged queens and newly mated queens were successful in joining test colonies in the field. None of the founding queens were accepted into test colonies. One marked colony queen switched colonies.

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Pulliainen, Unni, Heikki Helanterä, Liselotte Sundström, and Eva Schultner. "The possible role of ant larvae in the defence against social parasites." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286, no. 1898 (March 6, 2019): 20182867. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2867.

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Temporary social parasite ant queens initiate new colonies by entering colonies of host species, where they begin laying eggs. As the resident queen can be killed during this process, host colonies may lose their entire future reproductive output. Selection thus favours the evolution of defence mechanisms, before and after parasite intrusion. Most studies on social parasites focus on host worker discrimination of parasite queens and their offspring. However, ant larvae can also influence brood composition by consuming eggs. This raises the question whether host larvae can aid in preventing colony takeover by consuming eggs laid by parasite queens. To test whether larvae could play a role in anti-parasite defence, we compared the rates at which larvae of a common host species, Formica fusca , consumed eggs laid by social parasite, non-parasite, nest-mate, or conspecific non-nest-mate queens. Larvae consumed social parasite eggs more than eggs laid by a heterospecific non-parasite queen, irrespective of the chemical distance between the egg cuticular profiles. Also, larvae consumed eggs laid by conspecific non-nest-mate queens more than those laid by nest-mate queens. Our study suggests that larvae may act as players in colony defence against social parasitism, and that social parasitism is a key factor shaping discrimination behaviour in ants.

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Koyama, Satoshi, Shingo Matsui, Toshiyuki Satoh, and Ken Sasaki. "Octopamine and cooperation: octopamine regulates the disappearance of cooperative behaviours between genetically unrelated founding queens in the ant." Biology Letters 11, no. 6 (June 2015): 20150206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0206.

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We investigated whether octopamine (OA) is associated with the disappearance of cooperation in Polyrhachis moesta ant queens. Queens of P. moesta facultatively found the colony with genetically unrelated queens. The founding queens perform frequent food exchange with these non-related queens and partake in cooperative brood rearing, whereas single colony queens exclude non-related queens via aggressive behaviour. Thus, aggression is a factor that reduces cooperation. Given that aggression is generally associated with brain OA in insects, we hypothesized that OA controls the behavioural change in cooperation in the ant queen, via an increase in aggression. To test this hypothesis, we compared the amounts of OA and related substances in the brain between founding and colony queens, and observed the interaction of founding queens following oral OA administration. The brain OA levels in colony queens were significantly higher than those in founding queens. Oral administration of OA to founding queens caused significantly less trophallaxis and allogrooming behaviour than in the control founding queens, but with no significant increase in aggression. These results suggest that OA promotes the disappearance of cooperation in founding queens of P. moesta . This is the first study to reveal the neuroendocrine mechanism of cooperation in ant queens.

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Pearcy, Morgan, Michael A. D. Goodisman, and Laurent Keller. "Sib mating without inbreeding in the longhorn crazy ant." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278, no. 1718 (February 2, 2011): 2677–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.2562.

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Sib matings increase homozygosity and, hence, the frequency of detrimental phenotypes caused by recessive deleterious alleles. However, many species have evolved adaptations that prevent the genetic costs associated with inbreeding. We discovered that the highly invasive longhorn crazy ant, Paratrechina longicornis , has evolved an unusual mode of reproduction whereby sib mating does not result in inbreeding. A population genetic study of P. longicornis revealed dramatic differences in allele frequencies between queens, males and workers. Mother–offspring analyses demonstrated that these allele frequency differences resulted from the fact that the three castes were all produced through different means. Workers developed through normal sexual reproduction between queens and males. However, queens were produced clonally and, thus, were genetically identical to their mothers. In contrast, males never inherited maternal alleles and were genetically identical to their fathers. The outcome of this system is that genetic inbreeding is impossible because queen and male genomes remain completely separate. Moreover, the sexually produced worker offspring retain the same genotype, combining alleles from both the maternal and paternal lineage over generations. Thus, queens may mate with their brothers in the parental nest, yet their offspring are no more homozygous than if the queen mated with a male randomly chosen from the population. The complete segregation of the male and female gene pools allows the queens to circumvent the costs associated with inbreeding and therefore may act as an important pre-adaptation for the crazy ant's tremendous invasive success.

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Pearcy, Morgan, Noémie Delescaille, Pascale Lybaert, and Serge Aron. "Team swimming in ant spermatozoa." Biology Letters 10, no. 6 (June 2014): 20140308. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2014.0308.

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In species where females mate promiscuously, competition between ejaculates from different males to fertilize the ova is an important selective force shaping many aspects of male reproductive traits, such as sperm number, sperm length and sperm–sperm interactions. In eusocial Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants), males die shortly after mating and their reproductive success is ultimately limited by the amount of sperm stored in the queen's spermatheca. Multiple mating by queens is expected to impose intense selective pressure on males to optimize the transfer of sperm to the storage organ. Here, we report a remarkable case of cooperation between spermatozoa in the desert ant Cataglyphis savignyi . Males ejaculate bundles of 50–100 spermatozoa. Sperm bundles swim on average 51% faster than solitary sperm cells. Team swimming is expected to increase the amount of sperm stored in the queen spermatheca and, ultimately, enhance male posthumous fitness.

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De Gasperin, Ornela, Pierre Blacher, Guglielmo Grasso, and Michel Chapuisat. "Winter is coming: harsh environments limit independent reproduction of cooperative-breeding queens in a socially polymorphic ant." Biology Letters 16, no. 1 (January 2020): 20190730. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0730.

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Cooperative breeding animals frequently inhabit harsh environments. It is widely accepted that harsh environments hinder independent reproduction, and this constraint maintains individuals in family groups. Yet the assumption that harsh ecological conditions reduce the success of members of cooperative breeding groups when breeding independently has not been experimentally tested. We addressed this shortcoming using the socially polymorphic Alpine silver ant, Formica selysi . This species has single-queen (independent breeders) and multiple-queen (cooperative breeders) colonies coexisting within populations. We placed newly mated queens emerging from each type of colony to breed alone in either a harsh or mild winter condition and recorded their brood production and survival. Queens emerging from single-queen colonies were unaffected by the winter condition and were more successful at founding a nest independently than queens from multiple-queen colonies. By contrast, queens from multiple-queen colonies had higher mortality after a harsh than after a mild winter. These results support the long-held assumption that harsh environments constrain independent reproduction of members of cooperative breeding groups.

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Giehr, Julia, Anna V. Grasse, Sylvia Cremer, Jürgen Heinze, and Alexandra Schrempf. "Ant queens increase their reproductive efforts after pathogen infection." Royal Society Open Science 4, no. 7 (July 2017): 170547. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170547.

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Infections with potentially lethal pathogens may negatively affect an individual's lifespan and decrease its reproductive value. The terminal investment hypothesis predicts that individuals faced with a reduced survival should invest more into reproduction instead of maintenance and growth. Several studies suggest that individuals are indeed able to estimate their body condition and to increase their reproductive effort with approaching death, while other studies gave ambiguous results. We investigate whether queens of a perennial social insect (ant) are able to boost their reproduction following infection with an obligate killing pathogen. Social insect queens are special with regard to reproduction and aging, as they outlive conspecific non-reproductive workers. Moreover, in the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior , fecundity increases with queen age. However, it remained unclear whether this reflects negative reproductive senescence or terminal investment in response to approaching death. Here, we test whether queens of C. obscurior react to infection with the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium brunneum by an increased egg-laying rate. We show that a fungal infection triggers a reinforced investment in reproduction in queens. This adjustment of the reproductive rate by ant queens is consistent with predictions of the terminal investment hypothesis and is reported for the first time in a social insect.

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Cooling, M. D., B. D. Hoffmann, M. A. M. Gruber, and P. J. Lester. "Indirect evidence of pathogen-associated altered oocyte production in queens of the invasive yellow crazy ant, Anoplolepis gracilipes, in Arnhem Land, Australia." Bulletin of Entomological Research 108, no. 4 (September 18, 2017): 451–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007485317000967.

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AbstractAnoplolepis gracilipes is one of the six most widespread and pestiferous invasive ant species. Populations of this invader in Arnhem Land, Australia have been observed to decline, but the reasons behind these declines are not known. We investigated if there is evidence of a pathogen that could be responsible for killing ant queens or affecting their reproductive output. We measured queen number per nest, fecundity and fat content of queens from A. gracilipes populations in various stages of decline or expansion. We found no significant difference in any of these variables among populations. However, 23% of queens were found to have melanized nodules, a cellular immune response, in their ovaries and fat bodies. The melanized nodules found in dissected queens are highly likely to indicate the presence of pathogens or parasites capable of infecting A. gracilipes. Queens with nodules had significantly fewer oocytes in their ovaries, but nodule presence was not associated with low ant population abundances. Although the microorganism responsible for the nodules is as yet unidentified, this is the first evidence of the presence of a pathogenic microorganism in the invasive ant A. gracilipes that may be affecting reproduction.

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Nene, Wilson A., Joachim Offenberg, Gration M. Rwegasira, and Maulid W. Mwatawala. "The use of light to enhance weaver ant Oecophylla longinoda Latreille (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) queen catches." Sociobiology 64, no. 1 (May 30, 2017): 14. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v64i1.1216.

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Production of live weaver ant (Oecophylla longinoda and O. smaragdina) colonies is being developed as the ants provide several ecosystem services in agriculture and as they are used in education and research laboratories. Founding queens needed for colony production can be caught in artificial nests made of live leaves that are curled on trees. In this study we investigated if the catch rate of O. longinoda queens in artificial nests could be improved by attracting queens to trees with a light source (electric torches). We compared catch rates of 50 artificial nests on each of eight citrus trees, four of them with light and four without light. During two mating seasons covering 9 mating flights we caught a total of 178 queens. However, 3.8 times more queens were caught in the trees with light compared to trees without light. We conclude that queen catches can be highly improved by combining artificial nests with an attracting light source.

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Silva, Edypo Jacob, Roberto Da Silva Camargo, and Luiz Carlos Forti. "Flight and Digging Effort in Leaf-cutting Ant Males and Gynes." Sociobiology 62, no. 3 (September 30, 2015): 334. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v62i3.427.

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The nuptial flight and nest digging are high intensity activities which consume body reserves. The flight and digging effort was quantified by measuring the carbohydrate and total lipids content in males and females before and after the nuptial flight, and the queen’s digging effort during the foundation. The digging effort was quantified by experimentally stimulating the queens to dig a nest – one, two or three consecutive times – compared to the queens that did not dig. The colorimetric method was used to determine the soluble carbohydrates and extraction method of immersion was used to determine the total lipids. The results showed significant loss of carbohydrates and total lipids in males and females after the flight. On average the males contained 0.027 mg of soluble carbohydrates before the nuptial flight, and 0.005 mg after the nuptial flight, and the females contained 0.129 mg of soluble carbohydrates before the nuptial flight, and 0.079 mg after the nuptial flight. For the males the percentage of lipids decreased from 5.27±1.07% to 2.60±0.63% and for females from 36.46±4.86% to 32.62% after the nuptial flight. The digging effort of the queen caused a slight reduction in total carbohydrates, it was without digging 0.054 mg, normal digging 0.055 mg, double digging 0.045 mg (decrease of 20,22 %), and triple digging 0.044 mg (decrease of 20 %) per queen. Based on our results we conclude that the carbohydrate content is the main energetic resource used for the nuptial flight and nest digging, for males and gynes of leaf-cutting ants.

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D'Ettorre, Patrizia, and Jürgen Heinze. "Individual Recognition in Ant Queens." Current Biology 15, no. 23 (December 2005): 2170–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2005.10.067.

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Holman, Luke, Charlotte G. Jørgensen, John Nielsen, and Patrizia d'Ettorre. "Identification of an ant queen pheromone regulating worker sterility." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 277, no. 1701 (June 30, 2010): 3793–800. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.0984.

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The selective forces that shape and maintain eusocial societies are an enduring puzzle in evolutionary biology. Ordinarily sterile workers can usually reproduce given the right conditions, so the factors regulating reproductive division of labour may provide insight into why eusociality has persisted over evolutionary time. Queen-produced pheromones that affect worker reproduction have been implicated in diverse taxa, including ants, termites, wasps and possibly mole rats, but to date have only been definitively identified in the honeybee. Using the black garden ant Lasius niger , we isolate the first sterility-regulating ant queen pheromone. The pheromone is a cuticular hydrocarbon that comprises the majority of the chemical profile of queens and their eggs, and also affects worker behaviour, by reducing aggression towards objects bearing the pheromone. We further show that the pheromone elicits a strong response in worker antennae and that its production by queens is selectively reduced following an immune challenge. These results suggest that the pheromone has a central role in colony organization and support the hypothesis that worker sterility represents altruistic self-restraint in response to an honest quality signal.

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Idogawa, Naoto, Tomonori Sasaki, Kazuki Tsuji, and Shigeto Dobata. "Comprehensive analysis of male-free reproduction in Monomorium triviale (Formicidae: Myrmicinae)." PLOS ONE 16, no. 4 (April 29, 2021): e0246710. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246710.

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We report comprehensive evidence for obligatory thelytokous parthenogenesis in an ant Monomorium triviale. This species is characterized by distinct queen–worker dimorphism with strict reproductive division of labor: queens produce both workers and new queens without mating, whereas workers are completely sterile. We collected 333 nests of this species from 14 localities and three laboratory-reared populations in Japan. All wild queens dissected had no sperm in their spermathecae. Laboratory observation confirmed that virgin queens produced workers without mating. Furthermore, microsatellite genotyping showed identical heterozygous genotypes between mothers and their respective daughters, suggesting an extremely low probability of sexual reproduction. Microbial analysis detected no bacterial genera that are known to induce thelytokous parthenogenesis in Hymenoptera. Finally, the lack of variation in partial sequences of mitochondrial DNA among individuals sampled from across Japan suggests recent rapid spread or selective sweep. M. triviale would be a promising model system of superorganism-like adaptation through comparative analysis with well-studied sexual congeners, including the pharaoh ant M. pharaonis.

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Ozan, Martina, Heikki Helanterä, and Liselotte Sundström. "The value of oviposition timing, queen presence and kinship in a social insect." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280, no. 1766 (September 7, 2013): 20131231. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.1231.

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Reproductive cooperation confers benefits, but simultaneously creates conflicts among cooperators. Queens in multi-queen colonies of ants share a nest and its resources, but reproductive competition among queens often results in unequal reproduction. Two mutually non-exclusive factors may produce such inequality in reproduction: worker intervention or queen traits. Workers may intervene by favouring some queens over others, owing to either kinship or queen signals. Queens may differ in their intrinsic fecundity at the onset of oviposition or in their timing of the onset of oviposition, leading to their unequal representation in the brood. Here, we test the role of queen kin value (relatedness) to workers, timing of the onset of oviposition and signals of presence by queens in determining the maternity of offspring. We show that queens of the ant Formica fusca gained a significantly higher proportion of sexuals in the brood when ovipositing early, and that the presence of a caged queen resulted in a significant increase in both her share of sexual brood and her overall reproductive share. Moreover, the lower the kin value of the queen, the more the workers invested in their own reproduction by producing males. Our results show that both kinship and breeding phenology influence the outcome of reproductive conflicts, and the balance of direct and indirect fitness benefits in the multi-queen colonies of F. fusca .

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Negroni, Matteo Antoine, Maide Nesibe Macit, Marah Stoldt, Barbara Feldmeyer, and Susanne Foitzik. "Molecular regulation of lifespan extension in fertile ant workers." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376, no. 1823 (March 8, 2021): 20190736. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0736.

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The evolution of sociality in insects caused a divergence in lifespan between reproductive and non-reproductive castes. Ant queens can live for decades, while most workers survive only weeks to a few years. In most organisms, longevity is traded-off with reproduction, but in social insects, these two life-history traits are positively linked. Once fertility is induced in workers, e.g. by queen removal, worker lifespan increases. The molecular regulation of this positive link between fecundity and longevity and generally the molecular underpinnings of caste-specific senescence are not well understood. Here, we investigate the transcriptomic regulation of lifespan and reproduction in fat bodies of three worker groups in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus . In a long-term experiment, workers that became fertile in the absence of the queen showed increased survival and upregulation of genes involved in longevity and fecundity pathways. Interestingly, workers that re-joined their queen after months exhibited intermediate ovary development, but retained a high expression of longevity and fecundity genes. Strikingly, the queen's presence causes a general downregulation of genes in worker fat bodies. Our findings point to long-term consequences of fertility induction in workers, even after re-joining their queen. Moreover, we reveal longevity genes and pathways modulated during insect social evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ageing and sociality: why, when and how does sociality change ageing patterns?’

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Chérasse, Sarah, and Serge Aron. "Impact of immune activation on stored sperm viability in ant queens." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285, no. 1893 (December 12, 2018): 20182248. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2248.

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Ant queens mate on a single occasion early in life and store millions of sperm cells in their spermatheca. By carefully using stored sperm to fertilize eggs, they can produce large colonies of thousands of individuals. Queens can live for decades and their lifetime reproductive success is dependent on their ability to keep stored sperm alive. Maintaining high sperm viability requires metabolic energy which could trade-off with other costly processes such as immunity. We tested the impact of immune activation on the survival of stored sperm by prompting Lasius niger ant queens to mount a melanization response and subsequently measuring sperm viability in their spermatheca. Since queens face different challenges that influence energy allocation depending on the life stage of their colony, we measured sperm viability after immune activation in both newly mated queens (incipient) and in queens 1 year after mating (established). We found that immune activation reduced sperm viability in established queens but not in incipient queens, showing that the cost of immunity on sperm preservation depends on the life stage. Unexpectedly, established queens had significantly higher sperm viability in their spermatheca compared to incipient queens suggesting that ant queens are able to remove dead sperm from their spermatheca.

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Howe, J., M. Schiøtt, and J. J. Boomsma. "Queens of the inquiline social parasite Acromyrmex insinuator can join nest-founding queens of its host, the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior." Insectes Sociaux 68, no. 2-3 (June 17, 2021): 255–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00040-021-00819-3.

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AbstractQueens of the inquiline social parasite Acromyrmex insinuator are known to infiltrate mature colonies of Acromyrmex echinatior and to exploit the host’s perennial workforce by producing predominantly reproductive individuals while suppressing host reproduction. Here we report three cases of an A. insinuator queen having joined an incipient colony of A. echinatior that contained only the founding host-queen and her small symbiotic fungus garden. We conjectured that 1:1 host-inquiline co-founding—a phenomenon that has only rarely been reported in ants—may imply that the presence of an A. insinuator queen may incur benefits to the host by increasing survival of its incipient colonies. We observed that the parasite queens neither foraged nor defended the nest against intruders. However, the parasite queens interacted with the host and fungus in a way that could be consistent with grooming and/or with contributing eggs. These observations may help explain why A. insinuator queens have maintained metapleural glands, even though they are smaller than those of host queens, and why A. insinuator has lost the large foraging worker caste but not the small worker caste.

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Feldhaar, Heike, Susanne Foitzik, and Jürgen Heinze. "Lifelong commitment to the wrong partner: hybridization in ants." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363, no. 1505 (June 2, 2008): 2891–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0022.

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The extraordinary lifelong partner commitment in social insects is expected to increase choosiness in both sexes and therefore to be associated with particularly low hybridization frequencies. Yet, more and more studies reveal that in many ant taxa hybrids are surprisingly common, with up to half of all female sexuals receiving sperm from allospecific males in extreme cases. In a few ant species, hybridization has led to the evolution of reproductively isolated new lineages with a bizarre system of genetic caste differentiation: colonies produce hybrid workers and pure-lineage female sexuals. This requires that colonies either contain multiple queens or that queens mate multiple times. In most other cases, hybridization appears to be an evolutionary dead end and fertile hybrid queens are rarely found. In such cases, haplodiploid sex determination appears to decrease the costs of mating with an allospecific male. As long as hybrid workers are viable, a cross-mated queen can partially rescue its fitness by producing males from unfertilized eggs. Mating with an allospecific partner may thus be an option for queens when conspecific mates are not available. The morphological similarity of most ant males, perhaps resulting from the lack of sexual conflict, may similarly contribute to the commonness of hybridization.

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Azevedo-Silva, Marianne, Gustavo M. Mori, Carolina S. Carvalho, Marina C. Côrtes, Anete P. Souza, and Paulo S. Oliveira. "Breeding systems and genetic diversity in tropical carpenter ant colonies: different strategies for similar outcomes in Brazilian Cerrado savanna." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 190, no. 3 (May 13, 2020): 1020–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa035.

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Abstract Eusocial insects tend to present low genetic diversity (GD) within colonies, which can increase with the co-occurrence of multiple queens (polygyny) or with multiple mating by a single queen (polyandry). Therefore, it is important to elucidate how these strategies influence GD, which in turn mediate population ecology and how organisms respond to their environment. We studied two carpenter ant species from the Brazilian savanna, Camponotus renggeri and C. rufipes. Using microsatellites, we evaluated the number of breeders, the genetic relatedness and the contribution of polygyny and polyandry to GD within colonies. Both species exhibited facultative polygyny. In C. renggeri, low related queens formed colonies jointly and present low mating frequency. In this species, colony GD increased with the number of queens. Contrastingly, closely related queens of C. rufipes formed polygynous colonies, exhibiting high mating frequency. In C. rufipes, both queens and males contributed to colony GD. Despite the differences, the two species have similar GD at the colony scale. Under low mating frequency, our data support that polygyny has evolutionary importance for increasing GD in ant colonies, a mechanism mainly conferred to polyandry. Although the impact of GD in variable ecological and adaptive contexts remains uncertain, this study highlights how distinct reproductive strategies may generate similar patterns of GD in ants.

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Yamane, Seiki, Shingo Hosoishi, and Fuminori Ito. "Japanese Tetramorium queens: identification key and species diagnoses (Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Myrmicinae)." ZooKeys 1084 (January 26, 2022): 43–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1084.69767.

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In Japan, nine species have been known in the ant genus Tetramorium, of which five or more are considered tramps. A key to the queens of nine Tetramorium species found in Japan is presented. The tramp species T. tonganum Mayr, 1870 is excluded from the key because no queen was available for us, while T. pacificum Mayr, 1870 is included because it was once intercepted at a port in Japan and exotic queens were available. Diagnosis of the queen of each species is provided together with differences between the two female castes. Tetramorium tanakai Bolton, 1977 is resurrected from synonymy with T. kraepelini Forel, 1905 based mainly on the queen characters.

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Murakami, Takahiro. "Non-Inseminated Queens Have Worker-Like Behaviors in Colonies of Fungus-Growing Ants, Mycetomoellerius turrifex Wheeler (Attini, Hymenoptera)." Sociobiology 67, no. 3 (September 30, 2020): 358. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v67i3.5773.

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In eusocial Hymenoptera such as ants, bees, and wasps, the queen numbers are fundamentally important to maintain the social systems. In Texas, USA, a fungus growing ant, Mycetomoellerius turrifex Wheeler (1903) (the genus name was changed from Trachymyrmex to Mycetomoellerius in 2019 (Solomon et al., 2019)) was observed to have several non-inseminated queens that wandered outside the nest long after the mating season. However, the evolutionary and ecological factors causing the occurrence of such non-inseminated queens are still unclear. Thus, I examined the worker-like behaviors of non-inseminated queens of M. turrifex in Texas. Fifteen ant colonies were collected over three years, between 1999 and 2001. The frequencies of non-inseminated queens, workers, and broods, as well as the depths of nest chambers, were observed in each collecting year. In Nov. 1999 and May 2000, multiple nests contained queens that did not mate with males within their nests. These nests had a relatively larger colony size than those collected in Oct. 2001. Conversely, the colonies collected in Oct. 2001 were completely monogynous, i.e., there were no non-inseminated queens in the nests. Behavioral observations of each female revealed that the non-inseminated queensbehaved significantly differently from the workers and the inseminated queens. The behaviors that distinguished different female castes were mutualistic fungus garden care, digging of nest floors, guarding, and resting in the nest. These data suggest that queens failed to mate due to severe environmental fluctuations in southern Texas, but were accepted by the colony as a temporary labor force.

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Kuhn, Alexandre, Hugo Darras, and Serge Aron. "Phenotypic plasticity in an ant with strong caste–genotype association." Biology Letters 14, no. 1 (January 2018): 20170705. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0705.

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Caste determination in social Hymenoptera (whether a female egg develops into a reproductive queen or a sterile worker) is a remarkable example of phenotypic plasticity where females with highly similar genomes exhibit striking differences in morphology and behaviour. This phenotypic dichotomy is typically influenced by environmental factors. However, recent studies have revealed a strong caste–genotype association in hybridogenetic ants: workers are all interlineage hybrids while queens are all purebred, suggesting that female caste fate is genetically determined. Using the hybridogenetic ant Cataglyphis mauritanica , we show that under laboratory conditions, purebred offspring develop into reproductive queens but occasionally give rise to workers. Moreover, while hybrids typically become workers, juvenile hormone treatment can switch their developmental pathway to the reproductive caste. These results indicate that phenotypic plasticity has been retained in an ant with a strong caste–genotype association, despite its lack of expression in natural conditions.

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Gill, Richard J., and Robert L. Hammond. "Workers influence royal reproduction." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278, no. 1711 (November 3, 2010): 1524–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.1774.

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Understanding which parties regulate reproduction is fundamental to understanding conflict resolution in animal societies. In social insects, workers can influence male production and sex ratio. Surprisingly, few studies have investigated worker influence over which queen(s) reproduce(s) in multiple queen (MQ) colonies (skew), despite skew determining worker-brood relatedness and so worker fitness. We provide evidence for worker influence over skew in a functionally monogynous population of the ant Leptothorax acervorum . Observations of MQ colonies leading up to egg laying showed worker aggressive and non-aggressive behaviour towards queens and predicted which queen monopolized reproduction. In contrast, among-queen interactions were rare and did not predict queen reproduction. Furthermore, parentage analysis showed workers favoured their mother when present, ensuring closely related fullsibs (average r = 0.5) were reared instead of less related offspring of other resident queens ( r ≤ 0.375). Discrimination among queens using relatedness-based cues, however, seems unlikely as workers also biased their behaviour in colonies without a mother queen. In other polygynous populations of this species, workers are not aggressive towards queens and MQs reproduce, showing the outcome of social conflicts varies within species. In conclusion, this study supports non-reproductive parties having the power and information to influence skew within cooperative breeding groups.

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Ward, Philip S. "Ant soldiers are not modified queens." Nature 385, no. 6616 (February 1997): 494–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/385494b0.

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Helms, J. A., and M. Kaspari. "Reproduction-dispersal tradeoffs in ant queens." Insectes Sociaux 62, no. 2 (February 21, 2015): 171–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00040-015-0391-9.

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Holman, Luke, Kalevi Trontti, and Heikki Helanterä. "Queen pheromones modulate DNA methyltransferase activity in bee and ant workers." Biology Letters 12, no. 1 (January 2016): 20151038. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.1038.

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DNA methylation is emerging as an important regulator of polyphenism in the social insects. Research has concentrated on differences in methylation between queens and workers, though we hypothesized that methylation is involved in mediating other flexible phenotypes, including pheromone-dependent changes in worker behaviour and physiology. Here, we find that exposure to queen pheromone affects the expression of two DNA methyltransferase genes in Apis mellifera honeybees and in two species of Lasius ants, but not in Bombus terrestris bumblebees. These results suggest that queen pheromones influence the worker methylome, pointing to a novel proximate mechanism for these key social signals.

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Peeters, Christian. "Independent colony foundation in Paraponera clavata (Hymenoptera, Formicidae): First workers lay trophic eggs to feed queen’s larvae." Sociobiology 64, no. 4 (December 27, 2017): 417. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v64i4.2092.

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Paraponera clavata Smith is a large, notorious, and widely distributed ant, yet its colony founding behavior is poorly known. In the laboratory, a dealate queen collected from Peru reared a first generation of ten adult workers over 18 months; eight cocoons and several larvae failed. Food was obtained outside the nest and given to larvae. It took five and six months before the first two workers emerged, and they were smaller than average (i.e.‘nanitic’). At Q+4, trophic eggs were laid by workers and given directly to medium and mature larvae on three occasions. Six workers were dissected immediately after the queen’s death, and five had yolky oocytes in their ovaries. Queen foraging is known from anecdotal field observations, despite the prothorax (and corresponding neck muscles) being smaller than in other poneroid queens.

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Bordoni, Adele, Leonardo Dapporto, Irene Tatini, Martina Celli, Manuel Bercigli, Serena Ressurrección Barrufet, Brunella Perito, and Stefano Turillazzi. "Trans-generational immunization in the acrobat ant Crematogaster scutellaris." Biology Letters 14, no. 4 (April 2018): 20170761. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0761.

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Trans-generational immunization is defined as the transmission of an enhanced resistance to a pathogen from parents to offspring. By using the host–parasite system of the ant Crematogaster scutellaris and the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae , we describe this phenomenon for the first time in ants. We exposed four groups of hibernating queens to different treatments (i) a non-lethal dose of live conidiospores in Triton, (ii) a dose of heat-killed conidiospores in Triton, (iii) a control Triton solution, and (iv) a naive control. We exposed their first workers to a high dose of conidiospores and measured mortality rates . Workers produced by queens exposed to live conidiospores survived longer than those belonging to the other groups, while exposure to Triton and dead spores had no effect. Starved workers showed a significantly higher mortality. The treatments did not influence queen mortality, nor the number of offspring they produced at the emergence of the first worker, showing no evidence of immunization costs—at least for these parameters in the first year of colony development. We propose that trans-generational immunization represents an important component of social immunity that could affect colony success, particularly during the critical phase of claustral foundation.

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Ohkawara, Kyohsuke, Megumi Nakayama, Atsumi Satoh, Andreas Trindl, and Jürgen Heinze. "Clonal reproduction and genetic caste differences in a queen-polymorphic ant, Vollenhovia emeryi." Biology Letters 2, no. 3 (May 16, 2006): 359–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2006.0491.

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Most social Hymenoptera are characterized by simple haploid sex determination and environment-based caste differentiation. This appears to be strikingly different in the queen-polymorphic ant Vollenhovia emeryi . Almost all long- and short-winged queens from a population in Central Japan were homozygous at three microsatellite loci, whereas workers were mostly heterozygous, suggesting either a complex system of genetic caste determination or, more likely, the production of female sexuals from unfertilized eggs by thelytokous parthenogenesis and of workers from fertilized eggs. Furthermore, male genotypes were not compatible with those of the queens and had exclusively the paternal allele found in the sterile, heterozygous workers, probably because males are produced from fertilized eggs after the exclusion of maternal nuclear DNA as recently reported for Wasmannia auropunctata . The genus Vollenhovia might provide an interesting model system to trace the evolution of unusual caste and sex determination systems.

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Aron, S., I. Timmermans, and M. Pearcy. "Ant queens adjust egg fertilization to benefit from both sexual and asexual reproduction." Biology Letters 7, no. 4 (February 9, 2011): 571–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.1189.

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An enduring problem in evolutionary biology is the near ubiquity of sexual reproduction despite the inherent cost of transmitting only half the parent's genes to progeny. Queens of some ant species circumvent this cost by using selectively both sexual reproduction and parthenogenesis: workers arise from fertilized eggs, while new queens are produced by parthenogenesis. We show that queens of the ant Cataglyphis cursor maximize the transmission rate of their genes by regulating the proportion of fertilized and parthenogenetic eggs laid over time. Parthenogenetic offspring are produced in early spring, when workers raise the brood into sexuals. After the mating period, queens lay mostly fertilized eggs that will be reared as the non-reproductive caste.

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Doering, Grant Navid, Kirsten A. Sheehy, James L. L. Lichtenstein, Brian Drawert, Linda R. Petzold, and Jonathan N. Pruitt. "Sources of intraspecific variation in the collective tempo and synchrony of ant societies." Behavioral Ecology 30, no. 6 (August 11, 2019): 1682–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arz135.

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Abstract Populations of independently oscillating agents can sometimes synchronize. In the context of animal societies, conspicuous synchronization of activity is known in some social insects. However, the causes of variation in synchrony within and between species have received little attention. We repeatedly assessed the short-term activity cycle of ant colonies (Temnothorax rugatulus) and monitored the movements of individual workers and queens within nests. We detected persistent differences between colonies in the waveform properties of their collective activity oscillations, with some colonies consistently oscillating much more erratically than others. We further demonstrate that colony crowding reduces the rhythmicity (i.e., the consistent timing) of oscillations. Workers in both erratic and rhythmic colonies spend less time active than completely isolated workers, but workers in erratic colonies oscillate out of phase with one another. We further show that the queen’s absence can impair the ability of colonies to synchronize worker activity and that behavioral differences between queens are linked with the waveform properties of their societies.

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Suefuji, Masaki, Sylvia Cremer, Jan Oettler, and Jürgen Heinze. "Queen number influences the timing of the sexual production in colonies of Cardiocondyla ants." Biology Letters 4, no. 6 (August 12, 2008): 670–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0355.

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Wingless males of the ant genus Cardiocondyla engage in fatal fighting for access to female sexual nestmates. Older, heavily sclerotized males are usually capable of eliminating all younger rivals, whose cuticle is still soft. In Cardiocondyla sp. A, this type of local mate competition (LMC) has turned the standard pattern of brood production of social insects upside down, in that mother queens in multi-queen colonies produce extremely long-lived sons very early in the life cycle of the colony. Here, we investigated the emergence pattern of sexuals in two species with LMC, in which males are much less long-lived. Queens of Cardiocondyla obscurior and Cardiocondyla minutior reared their first sons significantly earlier in multi-queen than in single-queen societies. In addition, first female sexuals also emerged earlier in multi-queen colonies, so that early males had mating opportunities. Hence, the timing of sexual production appears to be well predicted by evolutionary theory, in particular by local mate and queen–queen competition.

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Heinze, J., S. P. Cover, and B. Hölldobler. "Neither Worker, Nor Queen: An Ant Caste Specialized in the Production of Unfertilized Eggs." Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 102, no. 3-4 (1995): 173–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/1995/65249.

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In addition to a queen and workers, colonies of the antCrematogaster smithiCreighton from Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, may contain one or several conspicuous “large workers” whose size, external morphology, and number of ovarioles are intermediate between that of queens on one side and that of workers on the other. According to laboratory observations, “large workers” are specialized for the production of unfertilized eggs, which are mainly eaten by the larvae and the queen but may develop into males in queenless colonies. We describe the morphology and the behavior of “large workers” and discuss their evolutionary significance.

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Stoldt, Marah, Linda Klein, Sara Beros, Falk Butter, Evelien Jongepier, Barbara Feldmeyer, and Susanne Foitzik. "Parasite Presence Induces Gene Expression Changes in an Ant Host Related to Immunity and Longevity." Genes 12, no. 1 (January 13, 2021): 95. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes12010095.

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Most species are either parasites or exploited by parasites, making parasite–host interactions a driver of evolution. Parasites with complex life cycles often evolve strategies to facilitate transmission to the definitive host by manipulating their intermediate host. Such manipulations could explain phenotypic changes in the ant Temnothorax nylanderi, the intermediate host of the cestode Anomotaenia brevis. In addition to behavioral and morphological alterations, infected workers exhibit prolonged lifespans, comparable to that of queens, which live up to two decades. We used transcriptomic data from cestodes and ants of different castes and infection status to investigate the molecular underpinnings of phenotypic alterations in infected workers and explored whether the extended lifespan of queens and infected workers has a common molecular basis. Infected workers and queens commonly upregulated only six genes, one of them with a known anti-aging function. Both groups overexpressed immune genes, although not the same ones. Our findings suggest that the lifespan extension of infected workers is not achieved via the expression of queen-specific genes. The analysis of the cestodes’ transcriptome revealed dominant expression of genes of the mitochondrial respiratory transport chain, which indicates an active metabolism and shedding light on the physiology of the parasite in its cysticercoid stage.

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37

Milius, Susan. "Ant Queens with Wrong Genes Lose Heads." Science News 154, no. 6 (August 8, 1998): 86. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4010635.

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SCHREMPF, A., J. HEINZE, and S. CREMER. "Sexual CooperationMating Increases Longevity in Ant Queens." Current Biology 15, no. 3 (February 8, 2005): 267–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0960-9822(05)00071-0.

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Sumner, Seirian, William O. H. Hughes, Jes S. Pedersen, and Jacobus J. Boomsma. "Ant parasite queens revert to mating singly." Nature 428, no. 6978 (March 2004): 35–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/428035a.

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Heinze, Jürgen, and Sarah Koller. "Apparent task specialization among cofounding ant queens." Insect Science 28, no. 1 (April 13, 2020): 278–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1744-7917.12754.

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Pech, Pavel, and Petr Heneberg. "Benomyl treatment decreases fecundity of ant queens." Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 130 (September 2015): 61–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jip.2015.06.012.

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42

Kaspari, M., and E. L. Vargo. "Nest site selection by fire ant queens." Insectes Sociaux 41, no. 3 (September 1994): 331–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01242305.

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43

Norman, Victoria, Hugo Darras, Christopher Tranter, Serge Aron, and William O. H. Hughes. "Cryptic lineages hybridize for worker production in the harvester ant Messor barbarus." Biology Letters 12, no. 11 (November 2016): 20160542. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0542.

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The reproductive division of labour between queen and worker castes in social insects is a defining characteristic of eusociality and a classic example of phenotypic plasticity. Whether social insect larvae develop into queens or workers has long been thought to be determined by environmental cues, i.e. larvae are developmentally totipotent. Contrary to this paradigm, several recent studies have revealed that caste is determined by genotype in some ant species, but whether this is restricted to just a few exceptional species is still unclear. Here, we show that the Mediterranean harvester ant Messor barbarus possesses an unusual reproductive system, in which the female castes are genetically determined. Using both nuclear and mitochondrial data, we show that Iberian populations have two distinct, cryptic lineages. Workers are always inter-lineage hybrids whereas queens are always produced from pure-lineage matings. The results suggest that genetic caste determination may be more widespread in ants than previously thought, and that further investigation in other species is needed to understand the frequency and evolution of this remarkable reproductive system.

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Bartels, P. J. "Reproductive caste inhibition by Argentine ant queens: New mechanisms of queen control." Insectes Sociaux 35, no. 1 (March 1988): 70–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02224139.

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Khila, Abderrahman, and Ehab Abouheif. "Evaluating the role of reproductive constraints in ant social evolution." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365, no. 1540 (February 27, 2010): 617–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0257.

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The reproductive division of labour is a key feature of eusociality in ants, where queen and worker castes show dramatic differences in the development of their reproductive organs. To understand the developmental and genetic basis underlying this division of labour, we performed a molecular analysis of ovary function and germ cell development in queens and workers. We show that the processes of ovarian development in queens have been highly conserved relative to the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster . We also identify specific steps during oogenesis and embryogenesis in which ovarian and germ cell development have been evolutionarily modified in the workers. These modifications, which we call ‘reproductive constraints’, are often assumed to represent neutral degenerations that are a consequence of social evolutionary forces. Based on our developmental and functional analysis of these constraints, however, we propose and discuss the alternative hypothesis that reproductive constraints represent adaptive proximate mechanisms or traits for maintaining social harmony in ants. We apply a multi-level selection framework to help understand the role of these constraints in ant social evolution. A complete understanding of how cooperation, conflict and developmental systems evolve in social groups requires a ‘socio-evo-devo’ approach that integrates social evolutionary and developmental biology.

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Lorite, P., S. Renault, F. Rouleux-Bonnin, S. Bigot, G. Periquet, and T. Palomeque. "Genomic organization and transcription of satellite DNA in the ant Aphaenogaster subterranea (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)." Genome 45, no. 4 (August 1, 2002): 609–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/g02-022.

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A satellite DNA family (APSU) was isolated and characterized in the ant Aphaenogaster subterranea. This satellite DNA is organized in tandem repeats of 162 bp and is relatively AT rich (51.9%). Sequence analysis showed a high level of homogeneity between monomers. Loss of satellite DNA has been detected in queens in relation to workers, because the amount of satellite DNA in queens is about 25% of the amount found in workers. Restriction analysis of the total DNA with methylation-sensitive enzymes suggests that this DNA is not methylated. Analysis of the electrophoretic mobility of satellite DNA on non-denaturing polyacrylamide showed that this satellite DNA is only very lightly curved. Their possible transcription was analyzed using reverse transcription and polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR). The satellite DNA is transcribed on the two DNA strands at the same level in worker and queen pupae, as well as in worker adults.Key words: Formicidae, methylation, satellite DNA transcription.

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Avril, Amaury, Jessica Purcell, Sébastien Béniguel, and Michel Chapuisat. "Maternal effect killing by a supergene controlling ant social organization." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 29 (July 7, 2020): 17130–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003282117.

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Supergenes underlie striking polymorphisms in nature, yet the evolutionary mechanisms by which they arise and persist remain enigmatic. These clusters of linked loci can spread in populations because they captured coadapted alleles or by selfishly distorting the laws of Mendelian inheritance. Here, we show that the supergene haplotype associated with multiple-queen colonies in Alpine silver ants is a maternal effect killer. All eggs from heterozygous queens failed to hatch when they did not inherit this haplotype. Hence, the haplotype specific to multiple-queen colonies is a selfish genetic element that enhances its own transmission by causing developmental arrest of progeny that do not carry it. At the population level, such transmission ratio distortion favors the spread of multiple-queen colonies, to the detriment of the alternative haplotype associated with single-queen colonies. Hence, selfish gene drive by one haplotype will impact the evolutionary dynamics of alternative forms of colony social organization. This killer hidden in a social supergene shows that large nonrecombining genomic regions are prone to cause multifarious effects across levels of biological organization.

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Bohn, Jonas, Reza Halabian, Lukas Schrader, Victoria Shabardina, Raphael Steffen, Yutaka Suzuki, Ulrich R. Ernst, Jürgen Gadau, and Wojciech Makałowski. "Genome assembly and annotation of the California harvester antPogonomyrmex californicus." G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics 11, no. 1 (December 4, 2020): 1–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkaa019.

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AbstractThe harvester ant genus Pogonomyrmex is endemic to arid and semiarid habitats and deserts of North and South America. The California harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus is the most widely distributed Pogonomyrmex species in North America. Pogonomyrmex californicus colonies are usually monogynous, i.e. a colony has one queen. However, in a few populations in California, primary polygyny evolved, i.e. several queens cooperate in colony founding after their mating flights and continue to coexist in mature colonies. Here, we present a genome assembly and annotation of P. californicus. The size of the assembly is 241 Mb, which is in agreement with the previously estimated genome size. We were able to annotate 17,889 genes in total, including 15,688 protein-coding ones with BUSCO (Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs) completeness at a 95% level. The presented P. californicus genome assembly will pave the way for investigations of the genomic underpinnings of social polymorphism in the number of queens, regulation of aggression, and the evolution of adaptations to dry habitats.

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Divieso, Raquel, Thiago S. R. Silva, and Marcio R. Pie. "Morphological evolution in the ant reproductive caste." Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 131, no. 3 (September 22, 2020): 465–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blaa138.

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Abstract The evolution of eusociality has led to considerable changes in the general hymenopteran body plan. In particular, the evolution of reproductive division of labour caused the worker caste to be largely freed from the demands involved in reproduction. As a consequence, workers were able to evolve highly specialized morphologies for foraging and colony maintenance, whereas the reproductive caste became specialized for reproduction. Despite these important changes, little is known about the general patterns of morphological evolution within the ant reproductive caste. Our goals here were to characterize morphological variation in the ant reproductive caste and to test whether different sexes display variation in their evolutionary rates. We obtained measurements of 897 specimens from a total of 678 ant species. The shapes of the size distributions were similar between sexes, with queens being larger than males in all traits except for eye length. Contrary to the expectation based on Rensch’s rule, although queens were larger, the degree of dimorphism increased with body size. Finally, there was strong evidence for an accelerated tempo of morphological evolution in queens in relation to males. These results represent the first comprehensive treatment of morphological variation in the ant reproductive caste and provide important new insights into their evolution.

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Dreier, Stephanie, Jelle S. van Zweden, and Patrizia D'Ettorre. "Long-term memory of individual identity in ant queens." Biology Letters 3, no. 5 (June 26, 2007): 459–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2007.0224.

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Remembering individual identities is part of our own everyday social life. Surprisingly, this ability has recently been shown in two social insects. While paper wasps recognize each other individually through their facial markings, the ant, Pachycondyla villosa , uses chemical cues. In both species, individual recognition is adaptive since it facilitates the maintenance of stable dominance hierarchies among individuals, and thus reduces the cost of conflict within these small societies. Here, we investigated individual recognition in Pachycondyla ants by quantifying the level of aggression between pairs of familiar or unfamiliar queens over time. We show that unrelated founding queens of P. villosa and Pachycondyla inversa store information on the individual identity of other queens and can retrieve it from memory after 24 h of separation. Thus, we have documented for the first time that long-term memory of individual identity is present and functional in ants. This novel finding represents an advance in our understanding of the mechanism determining the evolution of cooperation among unrelated individuals.

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Journal articles on the topic 'Ant queens'

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