Queen-Queen Competition by Precocious Male Production in Multiqueen Ant Colonies

Queen-Queen Competition by Precocious Male Production in Multiqueen Ant Colonies

Arriving earlier in the breeding area than his rivals may be beneficial for a male when females mate only once or during a short time span. The timing of a male's entrance is usually determined by the male himself, e.g., through returning early from his winter quarters or through accelerated larval development . Here, we document a surprisingly simple way of "first come, first served" in a spec...

Queen acceptance in a socially polymorphic ant

Queen promiscuity lowers disease within honeybee colonies.

Most species of social insects have singly mated queens, but in some species each queen mates with numerous males to create a colony with a genetically diverse worker force. The adaptive significance of polyandry by social insect queens remains an evolutionary puzzle. Using the honeybee (Apis mellifera), we tested the hypothesis that polyandry improves a colony's resistance to disease. We estab...

Variable queen number in ant colonies: no impact on queen turnover, inbreeding, and population genetic differentiation in the ant Formica selysi.

Variation in queen number alters the genetic structure of social insect colonies, which in turn affects patterns of kin-selected conflict and cooperation. Theory suggests that shifts from single- to multiple-queen colonies are often associated with other changes in the breeding system, such as higher queen turnover, more local mating, and restricted dispersal. These changes may restrict gene fl...

Queen Replacement in Dequeened Colonies of the Argentine Ant Iridomyrmex Humilis

Replacement of killed or damaged queen by a new inseminated queen produced in the same nest is regularly accomplished in honey bees (Butler, 1967; Wilson, 1971; Michener, 1974). In the lower termites, e.g., Calotermes, it has been known for a long time that the removal of the sexual pair leads to the differentiation of neotenic reproductives from larval, pseudergate or nymphal forms (Grass6 and...