Does cooperation mean kinship between spatially discrete ant nests?

Eusociality is one of the most complex forms of social organization, characterized by cooperative and reproductive units termed colonies. Altruistic behavior of workers within colonies is explained by inclusive fitness, with indirect fitness benefits accrued by helping kin. Members of a social insect colony are expected to be more closely related to one another than they are to other conspecifics. In many social insects, the colony can extend to multiple socially connected but spatially separate nests (polydomy). Social connections, such as trails between nests, promote cooperation and resource exchange, and we predict that workers from socially connected nests will have higher internest relatedness than those from socially unconnected, and noncooperating, nests. We measure social connections, resource exchange, and internest genetic relatedness in the polydomous wood ant Formica lugubris to test whether (1) socially connected but spatially separate nests cooperate, and (2) high interne...

真社会性（Eusociality）是最复杂的社会组织形式之一，其特征是存在被称为群体（colonies）的合作与繁殖单元。群体内工蚁的利他行为可通过广义适合度（inclusive fitness）解释——通过帮助亲属获得间接适合度收益。社会性昆虫群体的成员之间的亲缘关系，预计比它们与其他同种个体（conspecifics）之间的更密切。在许多社会性昆虫中，群体可扩展为多个社会连通但空间上分离的巢穴（即多巢现象，polydomy）。巢穴间的路径等社会连通关系可促进合作与资源交换；我们预测，来自社会连通巢穴的工蚁，其巢间亲缘关系（internest relatedness）将高于来自无社会连通、且不合作的巢穴的工蚁。我们对多巢型木蚁（Formica lugubris）的社会连通关系、资源交换及巢间遗传亲缘关系进行了测量，以验证以下假设：（1）社会连通但空间分离的巢穴是否存在合作；（2）高巢间...