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- Title
Worker policing and nest mate recognition in the ant Formica fusca.
- Authors
Helanterä, Heikki; Sundström, Liselotte
- Abstract
A conflict over male production arises in social insects where workers are able to lay unfertilized male eggs. This happens because each female (queen or worker) is most closely related to her own sons and is thus predicted to reproduce. The conflict is modulated by worker policing where workers prevent each other from reproducing by aggression or egg cannibalism. In this study, we show that in the ant Formica fusca, worker policing occurs by egg cannibalism rather than by overt aggression among workers. Furthermore, we show that, contrary to bees, wasps and other ant species, egg discrimination in F. fusca is not based only on a universal queen signature chemical and that nest mate recognition of eggs occurs.
- Subjects
ANTS; FORMICA (Insects); INSECT behavior; INSECT societies; QUEENS (Insects); CANNIBALISM in animals; ANIMAL aggression; EGGS; ANIMAL behavior; SOCIAL hierarchy in animals
- Publication
Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology, 2007, Vol 61, Issue 8, p1143
- ISSN
0340-5443
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00265-006-0327-5