Partitioning of reproduction among queens in the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile
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Serval ID
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Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Partitioning of reproduction among queens in the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile
Journal
Animal Behaviour
ISSN
0003-3472
Publication state
Published
Issued date
12/2001
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
62
Pages
1039-1045
Notes
Part 6 514ZE Times Cited:12 Cited References Count:47 --- Old month value: Dec
Abstract
We investigated how queens share parentage (skew) in the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, a social insect with multiple queens (polygyny). Overall, maternity of 546 male and female sexuals that mated successfully was determined with microsatellites in 26 colonies consisting of two queens and workers. The first main finding was that queens all contributed to sexual production. However, there was a significant departure from equal contribution to male and female sexual production in a notable proportion of colonies. Overall, reproductive skew for sexual (male and female) production was relatively low but higher than reproductive skew for egg production. The second interesting result was that there was a trade-off in the relative contribution of queens to male and female production. The queens contributing more to male production contributed significantly less to female sexual production. Finally, there was no significant association between colony productivity and the degree of reproductive skew. The relatively low reproductive skew is in line with predictions of the so-called concession models of reproductive skew because, in the Argentine ant, relatedness between queens is low and ecological constraints on dispersal nonexistent or weak. (C) 2001 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Keywords
secondary sex-ratios iridomyrmex-humilis formica-paralugubris animal societies skew hymenoptera colonies evolution number microsatellites
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
24/01/2008 18:38
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:59