Suefuji, Masaki and Cremer, Sylvia and Oettler, Jan and Heinze, Juergen (2008) Queen number influences the timing of the sexual production in colonies of Cardiocondyla ants. BIOLOGY LETTERS, 4 (6). pp. 670-673. ISSN 1744-9561,
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | MELITTOBIA-AUSTRALICA EULOPHIDAE; LOCAL MATE COMPETITION; PARASITOID WASP; RATIO ADJUSTMENT; DIMORPHIC MALES; LETHAL COMBAT; MALE MORPH; FIG WASPS; OBSCURIOR; HYMENOPTERA; local mate competition; fatal fighting; emergence order; Formicidae |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 590 Zoological sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie > Zoologie/Evolutionsbiologie (Prof. Dr. Jürgen Heinze) |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 14 Oct 2020 08:23 |
| Last Modified: | 14 Oct 2020 08:23 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/29920 |
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