Giehr, Julia and Heinze, Juergen (2021) Queen execution in a monogynous ant. ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION, 11 (4). pp. 1843-1849. ISSN 2045-7758
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Workers in many species of social insects are capable of laying unfertilized eggs, which can develop into haploid males. This causes a conflict about male parentage between queens and workers. In a few species, this may result in matricide, that is, workers kill the colony's queen. Queen killing has so far been observed mainly in multi-queen colonies or in annual species, when the queen's fecundity declines at the end of the reproductive period. Here, we report queen expulsion and matricide in a monogynous, monandrous ant with perennial societies. Workers were seen to aggressively expel both related and unrelated queens from their nest shortly after the end of hibernation. Queen expulsion and matricide led to a significant decrease in the number of workers and brood, but eventually increased the direct fitness of workers through significant male production. Long-term observations revealed a short lifespan of queens, while workers in orphaned colonies survived and produced male offspring over several years.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | altruism; ants; matricide; queen execution; Temnothorax; worker reproduction |
| 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: | 07 Jul 2022 06:27 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Jul 2022 06:27 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/45853 |
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