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The evolution of worker–queen polymorphism in Cataglyphis ants: interplay between individual- and colony-level selections

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Abstract

In many ants, young queens disperse by flying away from their natal nest and found new colonies alone (independent colony founding, ICF). Alternatively, in some species, ICF was replaced by colony fission, in which young queens accompanied by workers found a new colony at walking distance from the mother nest. We compared the queen morphology of Cataglyphis floricola, which disperses by fission, with that of its most likely living ancestor, Cataglyphis emmae, which disperses by ICF. As in other species, the transition from ICF to fission is associated with queen miniaturization. Interestingly, C. floricola presents two types of small queens: brachypters (with short non-functional wings) and ergatoids (worker-like apterous queens). Ergatoids are, on average, 2.8 mg lighter and have half the number of ovarioles than brachypters, which limits the advantage for a colony to produce ergatoids instead of brachypters. Furthermore, more ergatoids are produced than brachypters, but their individual survival rate is lower. During colony fission, 96% of the cocoons containing brachypters but only 31% of those containing ergatoids are transferred to the daughter nests where, after emergence, they compete for becoming the next queen. The remaining queen cocoons, which stay in the mother queen's nest, are eliminated by workers upon emergence, probably to maintain monogyny. This waste of energy suggests that producing ergatoids instead of brachypters is unlikely to increase colony efficiency. We argue that the evolution of ergatoids could derive from a selfish larval strategy, developing into worker-like queens in spite of the colony interest.

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Acknowledgments

We thank D. Aragonés, Á. Barroso, A. Carvajal, T. Cerdá, M.Á Cobo, J. Melgar, L. Sinde, and C. Ruel for their help in the field and C. Vaquero for her assistance with the MEB. We are also grateful to C. Peeters, T. Wenseleers, T. Monnin, P. Nonacs, J. Pearce, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments throughout this work. Jacqueline Minett assisted us with English editing. This project was funded by grants CGL2009-12472, CGL2006-04968, and CGL2009-09690 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Feder (for RB, XC, and AL). We thank the authority of the Doñana National Park for permitting access to research installations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Estación Biológica de Doñana, CSIC, Avenida Américo Vespucio s/n, 41092, Seville, Spain

    Fernando Amor, Patrocinio Ortega, Michael J. Jowers, Xim Cerdá & Raphaël R. Boulay

  2. Laboratory of Entomology, Zoological Institute, Leuven, Belgium

    Johan Billen

  3. IRBI, UMR CNRS 6035, Université de Tours, Tours, France

    Alain Lenoir

  4. Departamento de Biología Animal, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    Raphaël R. Boulay

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  1. Fernando Amor
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Correspondence to Raphaël R. Boulay.

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Communicated by L. Keller

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Amor, F., Ortega, P., Jowers, M.J. et al. The evolution of worker–queen polymorphism in Cataglyphis ants: interplay between individual- and colony-level selections. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 65, 1473–1482 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-011-1157-7

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