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Mixed messages: fertility signaling interferes with nestmate recognition in the monogynous ant Camponotus floridanus

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Abstract

Chemical communication is crucial for the organization of social insect colonies. However, with the heavy use of one communication modality, problems may arise such as the interference of different types of information. This study investigated how information about fertility and colony membership is integrated in the ant Camponotus floridanus. We introduced into mature, queenright colonies (a) the nestmate queen, (b) a nestmate worker, (c) a foreign, high-fertility queen, (d) a foreign, low-fertility queen, and (e) a foreign worker. As expected, workers did not attack their nestmate queen or a nestmate worker but responded aggressively to foreign workers and foreign, low-fertility queens. Surprisingly, workers did not attack foreign, high-fertility queens. Chemical analysis demonstrated that the cuticular hydrocarbon profile of C. floridanus encodes information about fertility status in queens and workers and colony membership in workers. We suggest that ants respond to this information in the cuticular hydrocarbon profile: individuals with strong fertility signals are accepted regardless of their colony membership, but individuals without strong fertility signals are tolerated only if their cuticular hydrocarbon profile matches that of colony members. Learning how social insects respond to multiple types of information presented together is critical to our understanding of the recognition systems that permit the complex organization of social insect colonies.

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Acknowledgments

We thank A. Endler for collecting founding queens in 2002 and A. B. Roddy, A. G. Dolezal, P. D'Ettorre, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on the manuscript. DM was supported by a National Science Foundation predoctoral fellowship. All experiments were conducted in accordance with American statutes governing research. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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  1. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-4501, USA

    Dani Moore & Jürgen Liebig

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  1. Dani Moore
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Correspondence to Dani Moore.

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Communicated by O. Rueppell

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Moore, D., Liebig, J. Mixed messages: fertility signaling interferes with nestmate recognition in the monogynous ant Camponotus floridanus . Behav Ecol Sociobiol 64, 1011–1018 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-010-0916-1

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