Abstract
Although related, Cataglyphis floricola and Cataglyphis tartessica show very different responses to colony orphaning. In the laboratory, under queenless conditions, C. tartessica workers produced male offspring via arrhenotoky, while C. floricola workers produced female offspring, including new queens, via thelytoky. Both species have workers with active ovaries that produce trophic eggs. In the field, in the late spring, C. floricola colonies were more likely to be orphaned than were C. tartessica colonies, probably due to differences in how they performed fission, their colony foundation system. The combined action of these two features could explain the presence of thelytoky in C. floricola and its absence in C. tartessica.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Sara Castro and Benjamin Carbonne for their help in the field. Fieldwork facilities were provided by ICTS-RBD. Ant collection procedures and experiments comply with Spanish legislation. This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER (projects CGL2012-36181 and CGL2015-65807).
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Amor, F., Ortega, P., Boulay, R. et al. Frequent colony orphaning triggers the production of replacement queens via worker thelytoky in a desert-dwelling ant. Insect. Soc. 64, 373–378 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-017-0556-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-017-0556-9