Sex-ratio regulation: the economics of fratricide in ants
Détails
Etat: Public
Version: de l'auteur⸱e
ID Serval
serval:BIB_7E4F7BD894D7
Type
Article: article d'un périodique ou d'un magazine.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Titre
Sex-ratio regulation: the economics of fratricide in ants
Périodique
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences
ISSN
0962-8452
Statut éditorial
Publié
Date de publication
1997
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
264
Numéro
1385
Pages
1255-1260
Langue
anglais
Résumé
In many insect societies, workers can manipulate the reproductive output of their colony by killing kin of lesser value to them. For instance, workers of the mound-building For mica exsecta eliminate male brood in colonies headed by a single-mated queen. By combining an inclusive fitness model and empirical data, we investigated the selective causes underlying these fratricides. Our model examines until which threshold stage in male brood development do the workers benefit from eliminating males to rear extra females instead. We then determined the minimal developmental stage reached by male larvae before elimination in F. exsecta field colonies. Surprisingly, many male larvae were kept until they were close to pupation, and only then eliminated. According to our model, part of the eliminated males were so large that workers would not benefit from replacing them with new females. Moreover, males were eliminated late in the season, so that new females could no longer be initiated, because matings take place synchronously during a short period. Together, these results indicate that workers did not replace male brood with new females, but rather reduced total brood size during late larval development. Male destruction was probably triggered by resource limitation, and the timing of brood elimination suggests that males may have been fed to females when these start to grow exponentially during the final larval stage. Hence, the evolution of fratricides in ants is best explained by a combination of ecological, demographic and genetic parameters.
Mots-clé
QUEEN-WORKER CONFLICT, ARGENTINE ANT, INVESTMENT, BROOD, COLONIES, HYMENOPTERA, FORMICIDAE, ALLOCATION, EVOLUTION
Web of science
Création de la notice
24/01/2008 20:22
Dernière modification de la notice
20/08/2019 15:39