TY - JOUR
T1 - Queen fertility, egg marking and colony size in the ant Camponotus floridanus
AU - Endler, Annett
AU - Liebig, Juergen
AU - Hoelldobler, Berthold
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank Thibaud Monnin, Christian Peeters, Kazuki Tsuji, a referee, and especially Lotta Sundström for providing helpful comments on the manuscript; we also thank the German Science Foundation (SFB 554 TP C3), the European Union (INSECTS, Integrated Studies of the Economy of Insect Societies, HPRN-CT-2000-00052), and Aventis (travel grant to AE) for funding. The Social Insect Working Group of the Santa Fe Institute provided insightful discussions.
PY - 2006/2
Y1 - 2006/2
N2 - In ant societies, workers do not usually reproduce but gain indirect fitness benefits from raising related offspring produced by the queen. One of the pre-conditions of this worker self-restraint is sufficient fertility of the queen. The queen is, therefore, expected to signal her fertility. In Camponotus floridanus, workers can recognize the presence of a highly fertile queen via her eggs, which are marked with the queen's specific hydrocarbon profile. If information on fertility is encoded in the hydrocarbon profile of eggs, we expect workers to be able to differentiate between eggs from highly and weakly fertile queens. We found that workers discriminate between these eggs solely on the basis of their hydrocarbon profiles which differ both qualitatively and quantitatively. This pattern is further supported by the similarity of the egg profiles of workers and weakly fertile queens and the similar treatment of both kinds of eggs. Profiles of queen eggs correspond to the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of the respective queens. Changes in the cuticular profiles are associated with the size of the colony the queen originates from and her current egg-laying rate. However, partial correlation analysis indicates that only colony size predicts the cuticular profile. Colony size is a buffered indicator of queen fertility as it is a consequence of queen productivity within a certain period of time, whereas daily egg-laying rate varies due to cyclical oviposition. We conclude that surface hydrocarbons of eggs and the cuticular profiles of queens both signal queen fertility, suggesting a major role of fertility signals in the regulation of reproduction in social insects.
AB - In ant societies, workers do not usually reproduce but gain indirect fitness benefits from raising related offspring produced by the queen. One of the pre-conditions of this worker self-restraint is sufficient fertility of the queen. The queen is, therefore, expected to signal her fertility. In Camponotus floridanus, workers can recognize the presence of a highly fertile queen via her eggs, which are marked with the queen's specific hydrocarbon profile. If information on fertility is encoded in the hydrocarbon profile of eggs, we expect workers to be able to differentiate between eggs from highly and weakly fertile queens. We found that workers discriminate between these eggs solely on the basis of their hydrocarbon profiles which differ both qualitatively and quantitatively. This pattern is further supported by the similarity of the egg profiles of workers and weakly fertile queens and the similar treatment of both kinds of eggs. Profiles of queen eggs correspond to the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of the respective queens. Changes in the cuticular profiles are associated with the size of the colony the queen originates from and her current egg-laying rate. However, partial correlation analysis indicates that only colony size predicts the cuticular profile. Colony size is a buffered indicator of queen fertility as it is a consequence of queen productivity within a certain period of time, whereas daily egg-laying rate varies due to cyclical oviposition. We conclude that surface hydrocarbons of eggs and the cuticular profiles of queens both signal queen fertility, suggesting a major role of fertility signals in the regulation of reproduction in social insects.
KW - Conflict
KW - Cuticular hydrocarbons
KW - Formicidae
KW - Honest signaling
KW - Pheromone
KW - Queen signal
KW - Worker policing
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U2 - 10.1007/s00265-005-0073-0
DO - 10.1007/s00265-005-0073-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:30944468765
VL - 59
SP - 490
EP - 499
JO - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
JF - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
SN - 0340-5443
IS - 4
ER -