Abstract
Since workers of the ant Aphaenogaster senilis can lay male eggs, reproductive conflict may occur between these workers. We examined the occurrence of worker conflicts in groups of workers either with or without the queen. Intranidal aggression was observed in each nest for 10 min each day, and the immatures produced were counted once a week for two months. Pairs of workers involved in aggression were taken regularly from each nest and used for chemical, morphological and anatomical analyses. The attacker and the attacked workers differed in their cuticular hydrocarbon profiles. The attacker and the attacked ants were at the same middle-aged fertile stage. The attacker ant was significantly larger and more fertile than the attacked ant, and more mature physiologically (poison gland was darker). There was apparently no stable hierarchy between laying workers. In the first weeks under queenless conditions, most eggs and larvae were destroyed, but they were later reared to obtain males. The intranidal worker aggression in this highly evolved ant is discussed in relation to dominance and worker policing.
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Acknowledgments
This study was performed during Ichinose’s stay in France with a fellowship from the French Government. We thank Xim Cerdá for ant collection. The authorities of the National Reserve of Doñana gave the authorization to collect the ants. Jean-Philippe Christidès provided us with precious suggestions for gas chromatography analyses. Julien Renault, Arnold Fertin and Guiléric Fraquet helped during the experiments. We thank Thibaud Monnin, Raphaël Boulay and four anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments on the manuscript. Hannah Reynolds revised the English.
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10164_2008_145_MOESM1_ESM.jpg
Ovaries of A. senilis workers; top: a laying worker with ovocytes; bottom: an old worker with atrophied ovaries and traces of yellow bodies coloured in red (JPG 1554 kb)
10164_2008_145_MOESM5_ESM.doc
Means (± SD) of the quantity and proportion of cuticular hydrocarbons in the pairs of attackers and attacked workers (n=24). The quantity and proportion were square-root and arcsine-transformed, respectively, and compared by a paired t-test (df = 23 in all tests). Peak numbers are from Lenoir et al. (2001). Significant differences are shown in bold (DOC 39 kb)
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Ichinose, K., Lenoir, A. Reproductive conflict between laying workers in the ant Aphaenogaster senilis . J Ethol 27, 475–481 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-008-0145-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-008-0145-5