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Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant

Competition among queens in polygynous societies may result in queen executions or conflicts over personal reproduction. Understanding the factors that mediate the executions of ant queens should provide insight into how queen numbers are regulated in polygynous insect societies. The Argentine ant i...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Abril, Sílvia, Gómez, Crisanto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6639317/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31320714
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46972-5
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author Abril, Sílvia
Gómez, Crisanto
author_facet Abril, Sílvia
Gómez, Crisanto
author_sort Abril, Sílvia
collection PubMed
description Competition among queens in polygynous societies may result in queen executions or conflicts over personal reproduction. Understanding the factors that mediate the executions of ant queens should provide insight into how queen numbers are regulated in polygynous insect societies. The Argentine ant is a widespread invasive species that displays secondary polygyny, and workers execute 90% of their nestmate queens each spring. In this study, we investigated: (1) whether ambient temperature, queen number, and protein deprivation have an effect on queen executions and (2) whether workers select the queens slated for execution based on their cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profiles. We found that the percentage of queens executed was positively correlated with temperature and queen number but that protein deprivation did not play a role. As for queen fate, the levels of some CHCs were higher in surviving queens. One of these CHCs is associated with queen productivity (i.e egg-laying rate and ovarian index) suggesting that workers execute the least productive queens. Our findings suggest that chemical cues related to fertility signaling may mediate queen executions in Argentine ants.
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spelling pubmed-66393172019-07-25 Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant Abril, Sílvia Gómez, Crisanto Sci Rep Article Competition among queens in polygynous societies may result in queen executions or conflicts over personal reproduction. Understanding the factors that mediate the executions of ant queens should provide insight into how queen numbers are regulated in polygynous insect societies. The Argentine ant is a widespread invasive species that displays secondary polygyny, and workers execute 90% of their nestmate queens each spring. In this study, we investigated: (1) whether ambient temperature, queen number, and protein deprivation have an effect on queen executions and (2) whether workers select the queens slated for execution based on their cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profiles. We found that the percentage of queens executed was positively correlated with temperature and queen number but that protein deprivation did not play a role. As for queen fate, the levels of some CHCs were higher in surviving queens. One of these CHCs is associated with queen productivity (i.e egg-laying rate and ovarian index) suggesting that workers execute the least productive queens. Our findings suggest that chemical cues related to fertility signaling may mediate queen executions in Argentine ants. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-07-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6639317/ /pubmed/31320714 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46972-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Abril, Sílvia
Gómez, Crisanto
Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant
title Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant
title_full Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant
title_fullStr Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant
title_full_unstemmed Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant
title_short Factors triggering queen executions in the Argentine ant
title_sort factors triggering queen executions in the argentine ant
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6639317/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31320714
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46972-5
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