The value of oviposition timing, queen presence and kinship in a social insect

Reproductive cooperation confers benefits, but simultaneously creates conflicts among cooperators. Queens in multi-queen colonies of ants share a nest and its resources, but reproductive competition among queens often results in unequal reproduction. Two mutually non-exclusive factors may produce such inequality in reproduction: worker intervention or queen traits. Workers may intervene by favouring some queens over others, owing to either kinship or queen signals. Queens may differ in their intrinsic fecundity at the onset of oviposition or in their timing of the onset of oviposition, leading to their unequal representation in the brood. Here, we test the role of queen kin value (relatedness) to workers, timing of the onset of oviposition and signals of presence by queens in determining the maternity of offspring. We show that queens of the ant Formica fusca gained a significantly higher proportion of sexuals in the brood when ovipositing early, and that the presence of a caged queen r...

繁殖合作虽可带来收益，但同时也会在合作者之间引发冲突。蚂蚁多蚁后群落中的蚁后共享巢穴与相关资源，但蚁后间的繁殖竞争往往会导致繁殖成功率不均。有两种并非互斥的因素可能造成这种繁殖不均：工蚁干预或是蚁后自身性状。工蚁可能会基于亲缘关系或是蚁后信号，对部分蚁后表现出抚育偏好。蚁后之间可能存在产卵初期内在繁殖力的差异，或是产卵起始时间的差异，这会导致它们在子代中的占比不均。本研究针对以下因素在决定子代母系归属中的作用展开检验：蚁后与工蚁的亲缘相关度（relatedness）、产卵起始时间，以及蚁后的存在信号。研究结果显示，当蚁后提前产卵时，黑褐蚁（Formica fusca）的蚁后在子代有性个体中的占比显著更高；而囚禁蚁后的存在能够……