Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants

Abstract Animal cooperation evolved because of its benefits to the cooperators. Pleometrosis in ants—the cooperation of queens to found a colony—benefits colony growth, but also incurs costs for some of the cooperators because only one queen usually survives the association. While several traits in...

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Autores principales:	Eva-Maria Teggers, Falk Deegener, Romain Libbrecht
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/a3928ed30d4741309da6d1e0bab10ff4
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:a3928ed30d4741309da6d1e0bab10ff42021-12-02T14:06:50ZFecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants10.1038/s41598-021-82559-92045-2322https://doaj.org/article/a3928ed30d4741309da6d1e0bab10ff42021-02-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82559-9https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Animal cooperation evolved because of its benefits to the cooperators. Pleometrosis in ants—the cooperation of queens to found a colony—benefits colony growth, but also incurs costs for some of the cooperators because only one queen usually survives the association. While several traits in queens influence queen survival, they tend to be confounded and it is unclear which factor specifically determines the outcome of pleometrosis. In this study, we used the ant Lasius niger to monitor offspring production in colonies founded by one or two queens. Then, we experimentally paired queens that differed in fecundity but not in size, and vice versa, to disentangle the effect of these factors on queen survival. Finally, we investigated how fecundity and size differed between queens depending on whether they were chosen as pleometrotic partners. Our results indicate that pleometrosis increased and accelerated worker production via a nutritional boost to the larvae. The most fecund queens more frequently survived the associations, even when controlling for size and worker parentage, and queens selected as pleometrotic partners were less fecund. Our results are consistent with fecundity being central to the onset and outcome of pleometrosis, a classic example of cooperation among unrelated animals.Eva-Maria TeggersFalk DeegenerRomain LibbrechtNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Eva-Maria Teggers Falk Deegener Romain Libbrecht Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants
description	Abstract Animal cooperation evolved because of its benefits to the cooperators. Pleometrosis in ants—the cooperation of queens to found a colony—benefits colony growth, but also incurs costs for some of the cooperators because only one queen usually survives the association. While several traits in queens influence queen survival, they tend to be confounded and it is unclear which factor specifically determines the outcome of pleometrosis. In this study, we used the ant Lasius niger to monitor offspring production in colonies founded by one or two queens. Then, we experimentally paired queens that differed in fecundity but not in size, and vice versa, to disentangle the effect of these factors on queen survival. Finally, we investigated how fecundity and size differed between queens depending on whether they were chosen as pleometrotic partners. Our results indicate that pleometrosis increased and accelerated worker production via a nutritional boost to the larvae. The most fecund queens more frequently survived the associations, even when controlling for size and worker parentage, and queens selected as pleometrotic partners were less fecund. Our results are consistent with fecundity being central to the onset and outcome of pleometrosis, a classic example of cooperation among unrelated animals.
format	article
author	Eva-Maria Teggers Falk Deegener Romain Libbrecht
author_facet	Eva-Maria Teggers Falk Deegener Romain Libbrecht
author_sort	Eva-Maria Teggers
title	Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants
title_short	Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants
title_full	Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants
title_fullStr	Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants
title_full_unstemmed	Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants
title_sort	fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/a3928ed30d4741309da6d1e0bab10ff4
work_keys_str_mv	AT evamariateggers fecunditydeterminestheoutcomeoffoundingqueenassociationsinants AT falkdeegener fecunditydeterminestheoutcomeoffoundingqueenassociationsinants AT romainlibbrecht fecunditydeterminestheoutcomeoffoundingqueenassociationsinants
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Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants

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