Worker thelytoky allows requeening of orphaned colonies but increases susceptibility to reproductive cheating in an ant
Section snippets
Colony Collection and Experiment
At the end of the hibernation period (8–10 March 2011), 18 colonies were completely excavated in the population of Argelès-sur-Mer near Perpignan (42.5722°N, 3.0437°E). They contained an average of 961.8 workers (range 427–2101) and no brood (Appendix Table A1). Two of these colonies were collected with no queen. Whether the queen died during hibernation or was lost during excavation is unclear. Colonies were then paired by colony size, with each pair comprising one queenright and one queenless
Success of Queenright and Queenless Colonies
At least two nests were found in each enclosure, and they matched the two colonies initially transplanted in the enclosures. The process of colony fission had started at the time of colony collection in five enclosures where more than two nests were recovered (Fig. 1). Newly founded nests contained fewer workers (median 56 workers, quartiles 40–103) and no or few gynes and hence could not be confounded with the two colonies initially transplanted, which were more populous (median 314 workers,
Discussion
In many species of social insects, colonies that are orphaned die. In others, the lost queen is replaced, and the colony carries on, but being orphaned is still a critical situation during which the colony's functioning is disturbed and its growth is poor. In addition, orphaned colonies are predicted to be particularly prone to reproductive conflicts in polyandrous species (Châline et al., 2003, Chéron, Monnin et al., 2011, Hughes and Boomsma, 2008), especially in species where workers can
Data accessibility statement
Genetic analyses reported in this article can be reproduced using the data published in Mendeley (https://doi.org/10.17632/83j7xtw6fm.2).
Acknowledgments
We thank the Laboratoire Arago (Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls-sur-mer, Université Pierre et Marie Curie) for permitting this study to take place on the experimental grounds of the Mediterranean Garden of Mas de la Serre. We thank David Sillam-Dussès, Fabien Aubrun, Romain Péronnet and Claire Tirard for help in collecting colonies.
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