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Recognition of caste and mating status maintains monogyny in the ant Aphaenogaster senilis

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Abstract

In ants dispersing through colony fission, queens mate near their natal nest and found a new society with the help of workers. This allows potential future queens to challenge the mother queen’s reproductive monopoly. Conflicts might be resolved if the mated queen signals her presence and the workers control the developmental fate of the diploid larvae (whether they develop to worker or queen). In this study we sought to determine whether, in the fission-performing ant Aphaenogaster senilis, conflicts between queens for control of the colony are resolved by the resident queen signalling her mating status. Virgin queens were less effective than newly mated queens in inhibiting queen rearing. Moreover, potential challenger queens were recognized and heavily aggressed independent of mating status. Chemical analyses showed that mating status was associated with changes in cuticular hydrocarbon and poison gland composition, but not in Dufour’s gland composition. Cuticular dimethylalkanes were identified as potential constituents that signal both caste (present in queens only) and mating status (mated queens have higher amounts). We hypothesised that pheromone emission by virgin queens did not reach the threshold needed to fully inhibit larval development into queens but was sufficiently high to stimulate overt aggression by mated queens. These findings provide evidence for the complexity of chemical communication in social insects, in which a small number of signals may have a variety of effects, depending on the context.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Ana Carvajal for laboratory assistance, and Jessica Pearce, Louise van Oudenhove, Christophe Lejeusne, Michael Jowers and Fernando Amor for their help in the field. We also thank the authority of the Doñana National Park for approving this research. We thank Naomi Paz for editing the English and Liselotte Sundström, Alain Lenoir and Jelle van Zweden for important comments on this manuscript. This work was funded by MICINN and FEDER (projects CGL2009-12472 to RB and CGL2009-09690 to XC). All experiments comply with the current Spanish legislation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Estación Biológica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Avenida Américo Vespucio, s/n, 41092, Seville, Spain

    Camille Ruel & Xim Cerdá

  2. Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Abraham Hefetz

  3. Departamento de Zoología, Universidad de Granada, Campus Fuente Nueva, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Raphaël Boulay

  4. Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l’Insecte, UMR CNRS 7261, Université François Rabelais, 37200, Tours, France

    Raphaël Boulay

Authors
  1. Camille Ruel
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  2. Abraham Hefetz
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  3. Xim Cerdá
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  4. Raphaël Boulay
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Correspondence to Raphaël Boulay.

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Communicated by L. Sundström

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Ruel, C., Hefetz, A., Cerdá, X. et al. Recognition of caste and mating status maintains monogyny in the ant Aphaenogaster senilis . Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 1295–1305 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1558-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1558-x

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