Costs of pleometrosis in a polygamous termite

Hartke, Tamara R.; Rosengaus, Rebeca B.

doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.2563

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Irrespective of bacterial infection of one or both members of the royal pair, these two checkpoints result in a significant bottleneck with a massive loss of colonies (present study; Cole et al, 2018). These results, in combination with previous work (Rosengaus and Traniello, 1993b;Shellman-Reeve, 1997a;Hartke and Rosengaus, 2013;Chouvenc et al, 2014;Cole et al, 2018), supports the assertion that the incipient stage of colony foundation in termites is a vulnerable time, influenced by multiple intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including pathogens. Once oviposition begins, the colony enters the "initial growth phase" (Cole et al, 2018), characterized by the presence of eggs and the first dependent hatchlings (Supplemental Figure 5).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…In spite their reputation for hardiness, termite colonies have extremely low probabilities of becoming established, even under ideal laboratory conditions (Rosengaus and Traniello, 1993b;Fei and Henderson, 2003;Calleri et al, 2006;Hartke and Rosengaus, 2013;Cole et al, 2018). In nature, swarming alates fall prey to diverse aerial and terrestrial predators (Sheppe, 1970;Delighne et al, 1981;Dial and Vaughan, 1987;Lepage, 1991;Matsuura and Nishida, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Pathogenic Dynamics During Colony Ontogeny Reinforce Potential Drivers of Termite Eusociality: Mate Assistance and Biparental Care

Cole

Rosengaus

2019

Front. Ecol. Evol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As an ecologically dominant taxon, termites appear to be resilient to environmental stressors. However, swarming alates (winged-individuals) encounter a myriad of environmental pressures that drastically reduce the probability of colony foundation. Dispersing alates face high rates of predation, desiccation, nitrogen limitation, and risks of infection, among others. We propose that alates benefit from mate assistance and biparental care to overcome some of these challenges. We assessed whether the bacteria, Serratia marcescens (an ecologically relevant, gram-negative, facultative termite pathogen), negatively affected the growth of newly founded termite colonies. Additionally, we revealed the significance of the king's presence in improving successful establishment of incipient colonies. Virgin queens of the dampwood termite, Zootermopsis angusticollis, were subjected to one of four treatments: naïve (untreated), or injections with either sterile saline, heat-killed S. marcescens, or a sublethal does of live S. marcescens. Each queen was then paired with a naïve, virgin king. The incipient colonies underwent censuses every 4 days for 80 days. We estimated survival rates and compared the onset of oviposition and hatching, overall egg production and larval hatching success, all as a function of queen treatment and the presence of a mate. We identified factors that, under pathogenic stress, influenced these fitness-related milestones. Queen infection significantly reduced the number of successfully established colonies. Moreover, both the presence of a king and his mass significantly influenced the queen's survival, her onset of oviposition, overall egg production, and hatching success. We conclude that termite colonies incur significant fitness costs after a queen suffers an acute infection and that the presence of a king (and his stored resources) may help mitigate the negative effects of a queen's infection. Pathogenic pressures, combined with the significant role of kings in colony success, appear to reinforce two-parent colony foundation, mate assistance, biparental care, and ultimately the overlap of generations, all of which have been considered pre-adaptations for eusociality. By studying the fitness consequences of pathogenic stress during the ontogeny of a termite colony, we can infer some of the conditions and pressures under which termite sociality likely emerged.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pathogenic Dynamics During Colony Ontogeny Reinforce Potential Drivers of Termite Eusociality: Mate Assistance and Biparental Care

Cole

Rosengaus

2019

Front. Ecol. Evol.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Colony fusions that result from conflicts and the elimination of primary reproductives also occur in other one-piece-type termites, such as C. secundus (Korb and Schneider 2007;Korb and Roux 2012) and K. flavicollis (Luchetti et al 2013a). In contrast, the rare cases of cooperative colony founding are largely restricted to the higher termites (Hacker et al 2005;Hartke and Rosengaus 2013).…”

Section: Nestmate Recognition and Agonismmentioning

confidence: 92%

Communication and Social Regulation in Termites

Bagnères

Hanus

2015

Social Recognition in Invertebrates

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Communication and social regulation are among the distinguishing features of termites: they are part of all basic aspects of termite biology, from ontogeny and caste differentiation to social behavior and cooperation. As in other highly social taxa, communication in termites predominantly relies on a complex network of chemical signals, which are complemented by vibration-based signals. In contrast to other social taxa, the role of visual cues is negligible. In this chapter, we review the recent literature on the different components that make up termite communication and social regulation systems by tracing termite evolution and examining the role played by different factors, such as sex and caste, and different behaviors, such as those related to defense, nestmate recognition, egg and brood care, foraging, and nest building, among others. The main characteristics of termites are compared to those of other social insects in the introduction. In the first section, we review the most important researches on termite communication and social regulation that are related to social activities in the basal phylogenetic lineages, and in the Termitidae (higher termites), the most advanced and diversified family. The abundant literature on the best studied genera, Reticulitermes, Coptotermes, and Heterotermes, which are considered for the purposes of this chapter to be intermediate termites, is reviewed and discussed separately in the second section. By using this approach, we seek to describe communication and social regulation systems in basal and primitive termites and illustrate how they have evolved to become more complex in intermediate and higher termites.

show abstract

“…Families are extended even when the primary queen is already dead and all offspring is produced only by the neotenics. When multiple female alates co-found a colony, we have a case of pleometrotic polygyny (Atkinson and Adams 1997;Hartke and Rosengaus 2013), and the colony is classified as a mixed family. Mixed families can also result from colony fusion Vargo 2004, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unrelated secondary reproductives in the neotropical termite Silvestritermes euamignathus (Isoptera: Termitidae)

Haifig

Vargo

Labadie

et al. 2016

Sci Nat

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A termite colony is usually founded by a pair of alates, the primary reproductives, which produce all the nestmates. In some species, secondary reproductives appear to either replace the primaries or supplement colony reproduction. In termites, secondary reproductives are generally ergatoids derived from workers or nymphoids derived from nymphs. Silvestritermes euamignathus is a termite species that forms multiple nymphoid reproductives, and to date it was hypothesized that these secondary reproductives were the progeny of the primary founding reproductives. We developed markers for 12 microsatellite loci and used COI mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to genotype 59 nymphoid neotenics found in a colony of S. euamignathus to test this hypothesis. Our results showed that nymphoids of S. euamignathus are not all siblings. The microsatellite analysis suggests that the secondary reproductives derived from a minimum of four different pairs of reproductives belonging to at least two different matrilines. This is the first record of non-sibling secondary reproductives occupying the same nest in a higher termite. These unrelated reproductives might be the result of either pleometrotic colony foundation or colony fusion.

show abstract

Costs of pleometrosis in a polygamous termite

Cited by 23 publications

References 42 publications

Pathogenic Dynamics During Colony Ontogeny Reinforce Potential Drivers of Termite Eusociality: Mate Assistance and Biparental Care

Pathogenic Dynamics During Colony Ontogeny Reinforce Potential Drivers of Termite Eusociality: Mate Assistance and Biparental Care

Communication and Social Regulation in Termites

Unrelated secondary reproductives in the neotropical termite Silvestritermes euamignathus (Isoptera: Termitidae)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About