Control of brood male production in the Argentine antIridomyrmex humilis (Mayr)

Passera, Luc; Keller, Laurent; Suzzoni, J. P.

doi:10.1007/bf02224135

Cited by 45 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Each unit was given a nest (Passera et al 1988) covered with a dark plastic sheet that could be removed for inspection. Experimental groups were kept at 22-25°C, under a 12 L : 12 D cycle and fed ad libitum with an identical diet of water, diluted honey and freshly killed insects.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Division of labour influences the rate of ageing in weaver ant workers

Chapuisat

Keller

2002

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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The evolutionary theory of ageing predicts that the timing of senescence has been primarily shaped by the extrinsic mortality rate, which causes selection intensity to decline over time. One difficulty in testing the evolutionary theory of ageing is that extrinsic mortality risk is often confounded with body size and fecundity, which may also directly affect lifespan. Social insects with a pronounced division of labour between worker castes provide a unique opportunity to study the direct effect of extrinsic mortality on the evolution of ageing rates independently of body size, reproductive effort and genetic configuration. In the weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina, the major (large) workers perform the risky tasks outside the nest, while the minor (small) workers stay within the highly protected arboreal nest. Hence, this pronounced division of labour is associated with high differences in extrinsic mortality risks. The evolutionary theory of ageing predicts that the minor workers should have a longer intrinsic lifespan than the major workers. In line with this prediction, we found that in a protected environment the minor workers lived significantly longer than the major workers did. Hence, the ageing rate appears to have been moulded by variation in the extrinsic mortality rate independently of size, reproductive effort and genetic configuration.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Division of labour influences the rate of ageing in weaver ant workers

Chapuisat

Keller

2002

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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“…After being collected, the animals were brought to the laboratory for transfer to artificial nests (rearing methods of Passera et al, 1988). Samples of workers and queens were sent to Denmark alive, where they were frozen and kept at -70 ~ for five weeks before being processed for electrophoresis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relatedness and inbreeding in a French population of the unicolonial antIndomyrmex humilis (Mayr)

et al. 1992

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SummaryWorker and queen samples of the Argentine ant Iridomyrmex humilis were analysed using allozyme electrophoresis. Two loci, peptidase and glucosephosphate isomerase, were found to be stainable and polymorphic. Both revealed an estimated relatedness in nestmate females that was close to zero, which is a consequence of the strong polygyny in this species. The inbreeding coefficient was found to be close to zero, which can be explained, in spite ofintra-nest mating taking place in L humilis, by the high mobility of mated queens.

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“…Experimental colonies were housed in artificial nests as described by Passera et al (1988), fed twice a week with 8% sugar water, mealworms and a synthetic diet (Keller et al 1989a) and kept at 27€2C with a 15 h/9 h light/ dark regime.…”

Section: Field Collection and Rearing Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental manipulation of colony genetic diversity had no effect on short-term task efficiency in the Argentine ant Linepithema humile

Rosset

Keller

Chapuisat

2005

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Genetic diversity might increase the performance of social groups by improving task efficiency or disease resistance, but direct experimental tests of these hypotheses are rare. We manipulated the level of genetic diversity in colonies of the Argentine ant Linepithema humile, and then recorded the short-term task efficiency of these experimental colonies. The efficiency of low and high genetic diversity colonies did not differ significantly for any of the following tasks: exploring a new territory, foraging, moving to a new nest site, or removing corpses. The tests were powerful enough to detect large effects, but may have failed to detect small differences. Indeed, observed effect sizes were generally small, except for the time to create a trail during nest emigration. In addition, genetic diversity had no statistically significant impact on the number of workers, males and females produced by the colony, but these tests had low power. Higher genetic diversity also did not result in lower variance in task efficiency and productivity. In contrast to genetic diversity, colony size was positively correlated with the efficiency at performing most tasks and with colony productivity. Altogether, these results suggest that genetic diversity does not strongly improve short-term task efficiency in L. humile, but that worker number is a key factor determining the success of this invasive species.

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Control of brood male production in the Argentine antIridomyrmex humilis (Mayr)

Cited by 45 publications

References 18 publications

Division of labour influences the rate of ageing in weaver ant workers

Division of labour influences the rate of ageing in weaver ant workers

Relatedness and inbreeding in a French population of the unicolonial antIndomyrmex humilis (Mayr)

Experimental manipulation of colony genetic diversity had no effect on short-term task efficiency in the Argentine ant Linepithema humile

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