Ontogeny of superorganisms: Social control of queen specialization in ants

The functioning of biological systems relies on the cooperation of
specialized components and understanding the processes that produce such
specialization is a major challenge in biology. Here we study the ontogeny
of biological systems at a new phenotypic level: the superorganisms (i.e.,
insect societies with specialized individuals). We investigate how
founding queens, the earliest developmental stage of ant colonies,
transition from expressing behavioral pluripotency to becoming strictly
specialized in egg production. We demonstrate that the presence of workers
both initiates and maintains this queen specialization and propose that
such a social control of queen behavior is common in ants and regulated by
ancestral mechanisms. These findings contradict the traditional view of
social insect queens as being intrinsically specialized in egg production
and may reshape our understanding of division of labor in insect
societies.