Pretender punishment induced by chemical signalling in a queenless ant

Monnin, Thibaud; Ratnieks, Francis L. W.; Jones, Graeme R.; Beard, Richard L.

doi:10.1038/nature00932

Cited by 135 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…throw the queen are prevented from doing so by being spread-eagled by other workers [40]. This punishment ends the challenge.…”

Section: Box 2 Controversy: the Selective Basis Of Worker Policingmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Enforced cooperation in insect and vertebrate societies and interspecific mutualisms. (a) Worker policing prevents workers from reproducing in the honeybee Apis mellifera [6]; (b) queen policing (inset) prevents most workers from reproducing successfully in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris [18]; (c) a worker with active ovaries is aggressed in the queenless ant Harpegnathos saltator [19]; (d) in the honeybee, differential feeding forces most larvae to develop as workers; only larvae reared in royal cells (arrow) can develop as queens [1,7]; (e) subordinate workers from the allodapine bee Exoneura bicolor are evicted from the nest when they have been in contact with a foreign male [39]; (f) a worker that attempted to overthrow the breeder female is punished in the queenless ant Dinoponera quadriceps [40]; (g) in the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher, subordinates that do not help look after the eggs and fry are evicted [57]; (h) rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) who do not share food are punished [58]; (i) in meerkats (Suricata suricata) dominant females prevent successful breeding by subordinates [62]; (j) soybean plants (Glycine max) sanction root nodule bacteria that do not fix nitrogen, as shown by this split root experiment [55]. …”

Section: Glossarymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Ratnieks

Wenseleers

2008

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

174

196

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…throw the queen are prevented from doing so by being spread-eagled by other workers [40]. This punishment ends the challenge.…”

Section: Box 2 Controversy: the Selective Basis Of Worker Policingmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Glossarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Ratnieks

Wenseleers

2008

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

174

196

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The same can be said for punishment in social insects; attacking a queen from another hive, destroying eggs laid by other workers and so on are relatively invariant responses to biochemical cues (e.g. Monnin et al 2002). While interesting as adaptive behaviours, from a cognitive point of view they are probably not much more interesting than rose thorns.…”

Section: Gros-louis 2004)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Punishment and spite, the dark side of cooperation

Jensen

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

173

167

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Causing harm to others would hardly seem to be relevant to cooperation, other than as a barrier to it. However, because selfish individuals will exploit cooperators, functional punishment is an effective mechanism for enforcing cooperation by deterring free-riding. Although functional punishment can shape the social behaviour of others by targeting non-cooperative behaviour, it can also intimidate others into doing almost anything. Second-party functional punishment is a self-serving behaviour at the disposal of dominant individuals who can coerce others into behaving cooperatively, but it need not do so. Third-party and altruistic functional punishment are less likely to be selfishly motivated and would seem more likely to maintain norms of cooperation in large groups. These forms of functional punishment may be an essential part of non-kin cooperation on a scale exhibited only by humans. While punitive sentiments might be the psychological force behind punitive behaviours, spiteful motives might also play an important role. Furthermore, functionally spiteful acts might not be maladaptive; reckoning gains relative to others rather than in absolute terms can lead to hyper-competitiveness, which might also be an important part of human cooperation, rather than just an ugly by-product.

show abstract

“…Increasing the fraction of alkenes and methylalkanes in the profile facilitates chemical communication [15]. The insect CHC profile is therefore likely to be under differential selection, varying between castes [16,17], tasks [8,9,18], fertility states [19,20] and positions in the social hierarchy [21][22][23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of slavemaking lifestyle, caste and sex on chemical profiles in Temnothorax ants: insights into the evolution of cuticular hydrocarbons

Kleeberg¹,

Menzel²,

Foitzik³

2017

Proc. R. Soc. B.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Chemical communication is central for the formation and maintenance of insect societies. Generally, social insects only allow nest-mates into their colony, which are recognized by their cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs). Social parasites, which exploit insect societies, are selected to circumvent host recognition. Here, we studied whether chemical strategies to reduce recognition evolved convergently in slavemaking ants, and whether they extend to workers, queens and males alike. We studied CHCs of three social parasites and their related hosts to investigate whether the parasitic lifestyle selects for specific chemical traits that reduce host recognition. Slavemaker profiles were characterized by shorter-chained hydrocarbons and a shift from methyl-branched alkanes to n -alkanes, presumably to reduce recognition cue quantity. These shifts were consistent across independent origins of slavery and were found in isolated ants and those emerging in their mother colony. Lifestyle influenced profiles of workers most profoundly, with little effect on virgin queen profiles. We detected an across-species caste signal, with workers, for which nest-mate recognition is particularly important, carrying more and longer-chained hydrocarbons and males exhibiting a larger fraction of n -alkanes. This comprehensive study of CHCs across castes and species reveals how lifestyle-specific selection can result in convergent evolution of chemical phenotypes.

show abstract

Pretender punishment induced by chemical signalling in a queenless ant

Cited by 135 publications

References 26 publications

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Altruism in insect societies and beyond: voluntary or enforced?

Punishment and spite, the dark side of cooperation

The influence of slavemaking lifestyle, caste and sex on chemical profiles in Temnothorax ants: insights into the evolution of cuticular hydrocarbons

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About