Queen mating frequency and relatedness in young Atta sexdens colonies

Summary:

Queen mating frequency is correlated with mature colony size across monogynous ant species as a whole. However, recent comparisons between Atta and Acromyrmex leafcutter ants found an opposite trend. We tested whether this result could be reproduced for Atta sexdens, using a new Atta colombica microsatellite marker to analyse queens and worker offspring from six young colonies. We found that all queens had mated multiply and used sperm from at least 2-3 males. This result is comparable to previous findings for Atta colombica and seems to confirm that queen mating frequency in Atta is lower than in Acromyrmex.