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Relatedness modulates reproductive competition among queens in ant societies with multiple queens.

ABSTRACT: Reproductive sharing in animal groups with multiple breeders, insects and vertebrates alike, contains elements of both conflict and cooperation, and depends on both relatedness between co-breeders, as well as their internal and external conditions. We studied how queens of the ant Formica fusca adjust their reproductive efforts in response to experimental manipulations of the kin competition regime in their nest. Queens respond to the presence of competitors by increasing their egg laying efforts, but only if the competitors are highly fecund and distantly related. Such a mechanism is likely to decrease harmful competition among close relatives. We demonstrate that queens of Formica fusca fine-tune their cooperative breeding behaviors in response to kinship and fecundity of others in a remarkably precise and flexible manner.

SUBMITTER: Helantera H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10183207 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May-Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Relatedness modulates reproductive competition among queens in ant societies with multiple queens.

Helanterä Heikki H Ozan Martina M Sundström Liselotte L

Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology 20230227 3

Reproductive sharing in animal groups with multiple breeders, insects and vertebrates alike, contains elements of both conflict and cooperation, and depends on both relatedness between co-breeders, as well as their internal and external conditions. We studied how queens of the ant <i>Formica fusca</i> adjust their reproductive efforts in response to experimental manipulations of the kin competition regime in their nest. Queens respond to the presence of competitors by increasing their egg laying ...[more]

PMID: 37192926

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Project description:In many animals living in groups the reproductivestatus of individuals is determined by their social status. In specieswith social hierarchies, the death of dominant individuals typicallyupheaves the social hierarchy and provides an opportunity for subordinateindividuals to improve their social status. Such a phenomenon occursin the monogyne form of the fire ant\emph{, Solenopsis invicta, }wherecolonies typically contain a single wingless reproductive queen, thousandsof workers and hundreds of winged non-reproductive virgin queens.Upon the death of the mother queen, many virgin queens shed theirwings and initiate reproductive development instead of departing ona mating flight. Workers progressively execute almost all of themover the following weeks. The workers base their collective decisionon pheromonal cues associated with the onset of reproductive developmentof the virgin queens which occurs after orphaning. To examine the factors that determine which virgin queens are executed and which survive, we set up artificial competitions between queens from different colonies. Using microarrays, we found that queens from winning colonies showed higher mitochondrial as well as organ development activities 24 hours after orphaning than did queens from colonies that lost the competitions. Furthermore, queens from colonies where queens shed their wings faster after orphaning were more likely to survive competitions. Finally, higher wing shedding speed is linked to higher mitochondrial activity. Eight competitions were initially conducted between queens form pairs of colonies. Six competitions clearly identified one winning colony and one losing colony. We thus have microarray data for six competitions (ie biological replicates), with one winning and one losing colony within each competition. Thus 12 colonies total. For each colony, RNA extracted from five queens was pooled, and hybridized against an unrelated common reference RNA that had been made from a pool of many S. invicta individuals of all castes and developmental stages. Lab work was conducted in blocks (by competition) with randomized order within competition to avoid introducing bias. No technical replication was performed.

Dataset Information

Relatedness modulates reproductive competition among queens in ant societies with multiple queens.

Publications

Relatedness modulates reproductive competition among queens in ant societies with multiple queens.

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